Caleb Ewan has said he contemplated retirement before joining Ineos Grenadiers after being put in a “bad situation” by his previous team, Jayco AlUla.
Ewan signed a one year deal with Ineos in January after a deal to move to XDS Astana reportedly fell through. The 30-year-old Australian had a contract in place with Jayco AIUla for 2025, but he was then left off the team’s list of riders on its official website.
Speaking on the Geraint Thomas Cycling Club podcast this week, Ewan explained: "There was a while where I didn’t really know what I wanted to do to be honest. That was just because I was in a pretty shitty situation with my team. So that was all going on and I honestly did not know what my future was going to hold, it was a very stressful time for me.
"Because of all that I didn’t really know what I wanted. To be honest they put me in a bad situation and it wasn’t ideal. Now I’ve kind of moved on a bit and I’m happy now that I’ve joined Ineos.”
Ewan turned professional with Jayco AlUla in 2014 in their former guise as Orica-GreenEDGE, before returning at the start of last season after several years with Lotto. The sprinter has won stages of all three Grand Tours, including five at the Tour de France, but he has not won a WorldTour race since 2022.
He also revealed that a potential move to Ineos, formerly known as Team Sky, had been on the table at various points of his career, including right at the beginning when he first turned professional. The 30-year-old explained that the move to the British squad has come at the right time.
“I didn’t know what was going on for I would say the past three months, four months,” Ewan said. “So it was pretty hard to know what I was training for. And I would say I’m a very goal focused person, so when I had no goal or nothing to train for it was pretty hard to get out on the bike. But It’s quite easy now that I’ve got a bit of a clearer focus.”
“It’s [Ineos is] one of the biggest teams in the world for sure. I would say I’ve never really experienced a team of this scale before. There've been a few times in my career where I’ve kind of asked the question of joining, but it never really worked out, so I’m glad this time that it did.”
His former team, Jayco AlUla, declined to comment.
