Caleb Ewan: "Being a sprints leader you have to get used to letting your team-mates down"

Caleb Ewan is the non-matched leader of Lotto Soudal in the sprint category, and arguably the team's most important figure. In a field where winning is everything, Ewan has talked about the consequences that missing out on those wins can bring to a sprinter's head.

"An up and down season, it definitely hasn’t gone as good as I’d have hoped," Ewan told Eurosport's Cycling Show. Coming out of the Giro with no wins wasn’t ideal, but I knew my form was there. I just have to stay focused now on the Tour. I know if I’m in really good shape I can be competitive there," he says.

The Australian sprinter took a win in each of the four stage-races he's taken place early in the season - Saudi Tour, Tour du Haut Var, Tirreno-Adriatico and Tour of Turkey - however when it came to the big goals he didn't manage to perform, having had to drop out of Milano-Sanremo with illness and left without a win at the Giro d'Italia.

“As a sprinter you want to win as much as possible, and that’s where you get your confidence from," he said. Despite having shown the speed at the Giro, aswell as the recent Elfstedenronde Brugge, with second places to show for, he's lacked a win since April. "I’m on track to be really good at the Tour. Obviously you have to bring it all together and I’m confident we can do that there," he added.

He's talked about the mental difficulties that such lack of success can bring to him: “Being a sprints leader you have to get used to letting your team-mates down. There’s guys that might ride for 200km on the front, trying to chase back a breakaway, and you might roll in fifth or sixth place. If you let that get to you every time it would be quite hard, and you would be quite hard on yourself, but they know that sometimes you win and sometimes you lose."

He'll be chasing stage wins at the Tour de France, with a big change to his leadout, however the 27-year old will be a big contender to take a win throughout the race. “Most of the pressure comes from yourself, it doesn’t come so much from the team. Obviously they want you to win and do well, but not as much as you want to do well yourself," he said.