Santos Tour Down Under: Caleb Ewans takes lead with stage one win

Caleb Ewan won stage one of the Santos Tour Down Under by three bike lengths

Australia’s Caleb Ewan took the lead of the Santos Tour Down Under by sprinting to a comfortable victory on stage one in Lyndoch.

Two days after winning the People's Choice Classic warm-up race, the 21-year-old Orica-GreenEdge rider beat Mark Renshaw (Dimension Data) into second place by three bike lengths and Wouter Wippert (Cannondale) into third.

British duo Adam Blythe (Tinkoff) and Ben Swift (Team Sky) finished fifth and seventh respectively.

Ten, six and four bonus seconds were on offer to the first three riders over the line, which means Ewan opens up a four-second lead over second-placed Renshaw at the top of the general classification.

Alexis Gougeard (Ag2r-La Mondiale) is third overall, also four seconds back, after forming part of the day's breakaway and collecting six bonus seconds at intermediate sprints.

Stage one took the peloton 130.8km from Prospect to Lyndoch

Ewan said: "It's a really proud moment for me. I have never led a WorldTour race before and to lead my first one in my home country is a real honour.

"I felt really good all day, and the team really backed me all day because they rode the front from the start. I'm super-happy that I could finish it off for them."

As well as sprint wins, Orica-GreenEdge are also targeting overall victory with Simon Gerrans in the six-day race, which concludes on Sunday.

Ewan added: "I need to thank Gerro for sharing the team with me. If he said to the team that he wants them to just ride for him, so they would have to do that, so for a guy like that, who can win overall, to say, 'You can have your goes on the days it's going to be sprints', it means a lot."

The six-day Santos Tour Down Under ends on Sunday

Ewan's win also took him to the top of the sprints classification, while breakaway rider Sean Lake leads the mountains classification after being first to the top of the day's only categorised climb.

Stage two of the Santos Tour Down Under takes the riders 132km from Unley to Stirling. Watch it live on Sky Sports 1HD from 2am-4.20am GMT on Wednesday.

You can also watch highlights of stage one on Sky Sports 3HD from 7pm-7.30pm GMT and 9.30pm-10pm GMT on Tuesday.

Stage one result

1 Caleb Ewan (Aus) Orica-GreenEdge, 3:24:13

2 Mark Renshaw (Aus) Dimension Data, same time

3 Wouter Wippert (Ned) Cannondale, st

4 Marko Kump (Slo) Lampre-Merida, st

5 Adam Blythe (GB) Tinkoff, st

6 Giacomo Nizzolo (Ita) Trek-Segafredo, st

7 Ben Swift (GB) Team Sky, st

8 Steele von Hoff (Aus) UniSA-Australia, st

9 Jose Joaquin Rojas (Esp) Movistar, st

10 Greg Henderson (NZ) Lotto Soudal, st

General classification

1 Caleb Ewan (Aus) Orica-GreenEdge, 3:24:03

2 Mark Renshaw (Aus) Dimension Data, +4secs

3 Alexis Gougeard (Fra) Ag2r-La Mondiale, same time

4 Wouter Wippert (Ned) Cannondale, +6

5 Sean Lake (Aus) UniSA-Australia, +7

6 Marko Kump (Slo) Lampre-Merida, +10

7 Adam Blythe (GB) Tinkoff, st

8 Giacomo Nizzolo (Ita) Trek-Segafredo, st

9 Ben Swift (GB) Team Sky, st

10 Steele von Hoff (Aus) UniSA-Australia, st