Vuelta Stage 5: A star is born as Caleb Ewan takes maiden Grand Tour win, Tom Dumoulin in race lead

Caleb Ewan, the 21-year-old Australian who is one of pro cycling's most exciting young prospects, has won the first Grand Tour stage of his career, taking two major scalps as he outsprinted John Degenkolb of Giant-Alpecin and Tinkoff-Saxo's Peter Sagan to win Stage 5 of the Vuelta in Alcala de Guadaira this afernoon.

While Orica-GreenEdge will celebrate Ewan's win in his debut three-week race this evening, his team mate Esteban Chaves lost the race leader's red jersey following today's 167.3km stage from Rota. That garment now rests on the shoulders of Tom Dumoulin of Giant-Alpecin by just 1 second as the Colombian was distanced in the finale.

Today provided a rare opportunity for the sprinters albeit on a tough finish, with Etixx-Quick Step's Iljo Keisse the final of the day's three breakaway riders to be swept up with 9 kilometres remaining. It was a sprint, however, that fancied riders such as Nacer Bouhanni of Cofidis failed to contest as the pace heated up ahead of the line.

Ewan, winner of the overall in the Tour of Korea earlier this month, had targeted victory today. Prior to the start, he had said: "Today is the day for me. It's the stage I had written down and the team will work for me as much as possible. The finish is a hard one, it's going to be a difficult sprint but I'm convinced the best sprinters will be there."

So it proved in a frenetic finale, with a series of roundabouts inside the final kilometres resulted in the peloton being strung out then having to regroup as the sprinters' teams fought to bring their men to the front.

Under the flamme rouge to signify the start of the final kilometre, it was Orica-GreenEdge who were to the fore as the road kicked uphill for a couple of hundred metres.

Daniele Bennati of Tinkoff-Saxo came to the front with team mate Sagan, leader of the points classification, in his slipstream, but the Australian team's hard work was rewarded as Ewan came to the front to secure the first Grand Tour win of his career.