January 4th News Shorts

Already regretting this commitment to make a post a day, especially during the times when news is hard to come by, but fuck it.

Caleb Ewan wins again

I hope Paul Sherwan is ready to be hit with a deluge of man love Phil Liggett is going to have for Caleb Ewan at the Tour Down Under. The young sprinter took his 3rd win in a row at the Bay Crits in the fucking difficult Portarlington circuit. Ewan outsprinted Steele Von Hoff and U23 track star Alexander Edmondson with relative ease. The U23s did well with Edmondson in 3rd as well as fellow trackie Miles Scotson in 4th, Ryan Thomas in 5th and junior Keagan Girdlestone in 8th. (Girdlstone is the younger brother of Dylan Girdlestone, who signed with Drapac.)

SEG Racing confirms roster

While I did a preview on SEG for 2015 already, the team added 2 more to their roster for this coming year. Joining the team from the Giant-Shimano World Tour team is Malaysian Sea Koeng Loh while the team also picks up Zhi Hui Jiang of China.

Loh won the Jelajah Malaysia in 2013 along with stages in the Tour of Thailand and Tour of Singkarak. He got the step up to the World Tour level last year with Giant-Shimano but it was a rough transition to the new level of racing. Loh has gotten a lot of praise as being a consummate teammate and while he might lack something in talent, makes it up with professionalism and grit. He should be a good addition to the young team as a mentor and road leader.

China hasn't exactly matched their export production with their meager cycling production. There has still only been one World Tour Chinese rider in Fuyu Li but continental level has been flourishing. Jiang has been one of the bright young riders that now dot the Chinese cycling landscape and is getting an incredible chance with SEG. He has done well in the Chinese continental races and even made it through the Tour de Langkawi and Tour de Korea, the latter of which he got 3rd place on a stage. China is still a huge untapped cycling market and if SEG can capitalized with Jiang, there could be more investment flooding into Chinese riders.