Caleb Ewan was hoping to finally give it a good go at a grand tour again at this Giro d'Italia, but instead of a success, all he's found was yet another layer of misery. And it's perhaps even a thicker mud for the Australian, who is obviously in a very good shape, but the Jayco AlUla sprinter still can't make the ends meet when it matters.
"I just think he has completely lost his mojo!" Adam Blythe said on the Breakaway show. "That fight in him, I just don't think he has got that in his belly at the minute. Coming into a final like that, if you get nudged once or twice, you immediately lose 20 places."
"I think for Caleb, his form is there because he is not getting dropped first. I think the legs are there, it is just that fire that's missing. It is not once, it is every stage so far. I just think that positioning coming into the final, he is just really, really struggling with."
"The best way to get out of it is to get a good result or a win, but he has got to get close to that first. So he is in a very, very difficult situation for him at the minute," Blythe thinks.
Robbie McEwen, once successful Australian sprinter himself, added: "I agree with a lot of that assessment, and the mojo is missing to a large extent. Aerobically, he is really good and he gets dropped later than other sprinters, but when he goes into the final, something is switching off and just not engaging."
Daniel Lloyd showed some sympathy for Ewan's team-mates. "It doesn't matter how well you play it as a lead-out, if your sprinter is not there on the back of the lead-out, it is not going to make any difference to the end result."