The place to watch the Tour de France - LIVE, FREE and EXCLUSIVE - plus the second edition of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift is right here on SBS. Replays, mini stage recaps, highlights and live streaming can be found on the and the available for download on and .
Heulot told SBS Sport he was “very disappointed” with Ewan’s decision to abandon the French Grand Tour with one week remaining, before casting doubt on the Australian’s future with the team.
“The start of the season for Caleb is the same at the Tour. It’s a pity,” Heulot said. “Yesterday, he (tried) to give up. We tried to motivate him but, I guess, the problem in the legs were in the brain.”
“Sincerely, I don’t know,” he added when asked of his plan for Ewan moving forward. “I’m very disappointed.”
Though Lotto-Dstny later cited fatigue in a statement addressing Ewan’s departure, Heulot’s comments caught the ire of Bakker who struggled to make sense of the public criticism and its necessity.
“To sink the boots in on somebody, one of your own riders, in that way is very distasteful,” Bakker told Cyclingnews.
“I’m staggered that he would think that airing those comments in a public forum at this time is the right thing to do without speaking to myself, and, as far as I know, Caleb.
“My focus right now is to see that Caleb is OK.”
Ewan did not speak to the media after the race but departs having finished second and third in two stages, all while sprinting with a compromised lead-out due to Jacopo Guarnieri’s crash in the opening week.
Such external factors have not been taken into account, according to Bakker, who believed Ewan “threatened Jasper Philipsen the most” but was placed under more pressure to win as a result.
“Caleb, he’s at a low ebb,” Bakker explained. “I mean, you’ve abandoned the Tour, you’re not feeling great, and then to flippantly talk about his mental well-being coming into the race, or his mental approach, at such a time, I think is dangerous.
“A dangerous path to take for a person in such a role, a general manager role, for anyone, and outdated. It’s an outdated, insensitive way of commenting about a rider within his team.
“And a rider who has been there for four years, committed. The last 12-18 months haven’t been the high point of his time there, but he’s certainly had some outstanding results for the team.”
“I think, as an athlete, if you don’t feel like you’ve got the support or the belief of your team it’s very hard to perform,” he added.
The ordeal has left Bakker “quite disgusted” and eager to speak with Heulot over the coming days, though he maintained that Ewan was more resilient than he’d been given credit for and remains determined to get back to the stage-winning form he produced in his earlier years with the Belgian team.
“I don’t think anyone would ever say he’s a guy who takes shortcuts or he fluctuates with his training,” he said. “He’s an incredibly committed guy.
“He’s not a quitter, as has been referred to or suggested. Caleb is a tough guy. He’s come back from some horrific crashes… he’s never wavered from the fact he wants to get back to his best.
“He hasn’t quite got there yet but he’s never gone out and looked to blame anybody or point the finger, such has been done here.
“So, we’ll make sure that he’s OK and wrap our arms around him and show him some love. Then we’ll have to see what happens when the dust settles on all of this.”
