Caleb Ewan wins Tour Down Under warm-up in Adelaide

Caleb Ewan sprinted to victory in the People's Choice Classic in Adelaide, the traditional warm-up race for the Tour Down Under.

Ewan won his first grand tour stage at last year's Vuelta a Espana and secured his fifth win of 2016 by beating Giacomo Nizzolo at the end of a fast and furious 51km circuit race.

The Orica-GreenEdge rider had already won four criterium events in Australia since the turn of the year and he made the most of a fine leadout effort by South African team-mate Daryl Impey to prevail.

Although the race does not count for the Tour Down Under standings, Ewan's victory means he will wear the leader's ochre jersey in Tuesday's opening stage from Prospect to Lyndoch.

Nizzolo took second ahead of Britain's Adam Blythe, who was racing in Tinkoff colours for the first time, while Ben Swift came home in fourth for Team Sky after a lot of hard work had been put in by Peter Kennaugh and Geraint Thomas.

"It's always hard going into a race as a favourite and especially when there is such a tough field here," Ewan said. "I was probably more nervous for today than I have been for any of the other race so far.

"My team just rode perfectly. We sat back for a lot of the race and cruised around. And they were awesome. Once you need to go to the front, they kept me up there and led me out perfectly."

People's Choice Classic result:

1 Caleb Ewan (Aus) Orica-GreenEdge 1hr 02mins 25secs

2 Giacomo Nizzolo (Ita) Trek-Segafredo st

3 Adam Blythe (Gbr) Tinkoff st

4 Ben Swift (Gbr) Team Sky st

5 Marko Kump (Slo) Lampre-Merida st

6 Reinhardt Janse van Rensburg (Rsa) Dimension Data st

7 Davide Martinelli (Ita) Etixx - Quick-Step st

8 Matteo Pelucchi (Ita) IAM Cycling st

9 Wouter Wippert (Ned) Cannondale st

10 Patrick Shaw (Aus) UniSA st