Robert "Robbie" McEwen is a former Australian professional road cycling rider. He last rode for on the UCI World Tour. Robbie is a three-time winner of the Tour de France points classification and, at the peak of his career, was considered one of the world's fastest sprinters. A former Australian BMX champion, McEwen switched to road cycling in 1990 at 18 years of age. He raced as a professional from 1996 until 2012. McEwen lives in Australia with his Belgian wife, Angélique Pattyn, his son, Ewan, and his daughters, Elena and Claudia. In 2011, McEwen published an autobiography entitled 'One Way Road'. McEwen lived for many years in the Belgian town of Everbeek and is fluent in Dutch. Robbie retired from the World Tour after riding the 2012 Tour of California and is now an occasional cyclist journalist, commentating on the Tour Down Under and the Tour de France.
Career
After four years of moving through the regional, state and national levels of cycling, McEwen started at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra under road cycling coach Heiko Salzwedel. The first signs of his sprinting prowess on the international stage were at the Peace Race, winning three stages for the Australian national team. Robbie competed in the road race at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games and the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. He was also included on the Australian team for the 1994 UCI Road Cycling World Championship in Italy, and the 2002 UCI Road Cycling World Championship in Belgium, where he won a silver medal. McEwen was again selected for Australia at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games as part of the road race team. McEwen was named 2002 Australian Cyclist of the Year, 2002 Male Road Cyclist of the Year and 1999 Male Road Cyclist of the Year. After spending 16 seasons racing for foreign teams, Robbie signed for the new Australian team in September 2011 after it gained a ProTeam licence for the 2012 season.
Tour de France
McEwen participated in the Tour de France on 12 occasions: 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2010. Over the years, he has won 12 stages. In 1999, McEwen won the final stage sprint in Paris on the Champs-Elysées. In 2002, McEwen won stage 3 and stage 20. In 2004, McEwen won stages 3 and 9. In 2005, McEwen won stage 5 to Montargis, stage 7 to Karlsruhe in Germany, and stage 13 to Montpellier. In 2006, McEwen won stages 2, 4 and 6 to Esch-sur-Alzette, St Quentin and Vitré respectively. He started the 2007 Tour with a victorious sprint on stage 1 to Canterbury. The stage win was seen as remarkable as he had crashed with to go. He injured his knee and wrist but with the help of his team he clawed his way back to the bunch to win the sprint by over a bike length. The injuries he sustained from this crash did not prevent him from continuing but eventually he was forced out of the race when the Tour entered the Mountains, his knee injury became worse and he failed to finish stage eight within the time limit. In 2002, McEwen became the first Australian to win the Tour de France points classification. By 2006, McEwen had won the Tour de France green points jersey three times in this race – in 2002, 2004 and, again, in 2006 – defeating rivals such as fellow Australians Baden Cooke and Stuart O'Grady, and international competitors like Erik Zabel of Germany, Tom Boonen of Belgium and Thor Hushovd of Norway. McEwen's first win in the 2002 Tour de France saw him win the green jersey from German legend Erik Zabel, with O’Grady third and Cooke fourth. In 2004, McEwen won the points classification for a second time, defeating Hushovd and Erik Zabel. McEwen had fractured two transverse process in a mass pile up on stage 6 and continued the race in extreme pain, making his stage 9 win in Gueret all the more remarkable. McEwen won his third and final Points classification in the 2006 Tour de France, this time with Zabel second and Hushovd third. In 2012, he announced that the Tour of California would be the last professional race of his career. He struggled to reach the finishing line of the mountain stages in the gruppetto. He humorously said after his arrival on the final stage in Los Angeles: "This was a good race to pick as my last because I suffered so much this week I won't miss it." He was awarded the "Most Courageous Rider" jersey at the end of the race to commemorate his last day of professional cycling. After retiring from racing, McEwen remained with Orica-GreenEDGE as a technical adviser and sprint coach.
Commentating
In 2017, 2018 and 2019, Robbie McEwen commentated on the Tour de France's world feed in English, alongside fellow Australian Matthew Keenan.
Sprinting style
McEwen was known as a particularly cunning and tactical sprinter. Where many teams would use 'Lead-Out Trains' to secure a stage win for their selected sprinter, McEwen achieved many of his victories either with one lead-out man, or often none at all, by aggressively and intelligently positioning himself within the peloton in the final kilometres. Fellow Australian cyclist Stuart O'Grady considers McEwen to be "one of the fastest, most powerful accelerators the planet has ever seen".
Personal life
McEwen has two brothers, the eldest is Ross and is getting into Triathlon, the youngest, Cam, is a Scrum Master at Telstra and a car enthusiast.
