KELSO is best known as the birthplace of Scotland rugby stalwart John ‘The White Shark’ Jeffrey but yesterday this Borders market town bore witness to another fine bit of blind siding as Caleb Ewan outflanked his rivals on Stage One of the OVO Energy Tour of Britain.

Big guns like Italy’s Elia Viviani, at the head of a high quality Team Sky delegation, and Norway’s Edvald Boasson Hagen - who was thought a better prospect of victory on the day than his rusty Dimension Data team-mate Mark Cavendish - had designs on taking this stage win, but it was the 23-year-old Australian Ewan who controlled his bike best on the awkward cobbles of Kelso town centre, finishing first for his Aussie team Orica Scott by just fractions of a second after 190km on the road.

“I knew it was pretty close, but when I crossed the line I was pretty confident that I had got it,” the Aussie said afterwards. “Then I saw all the cameras and people go around Eddy and I thought ‘hang on a minute’.” A man with stage wins in both the Giro d’Italia and Vuelta d’Espana to his name, not to mention the final stage of last year’s Tour of Britain in London, Ewan was a popular choice as he stepped onto the podium in the town square and became the first wearer of the race leader’s green jersey. “Look at the size of those calves,” one afternoon drinker in the town’s Cross Keys hotel purred appreciatively.

This was the sixth year since the competition’s relaunch in 2004 that Scotland has featured in the opening stage - last year the stage from Glasgow to Castle Douglas was taken by the fearsome German Andre Greipel - and once again the crowd were out in force. They stood four or five deep when the UK’s main stage race rolled out along the Royal Mile yesterday morning and vantage points were in similarly short supply when the race hit Kelso. Greggs on the town’s Horsemarket in particular was queued out the door, awaiting a cavalcade which passed through Haddington, Gifford, Duns and Coldstream before making a loop through the Borders, with three second category climbs thrown in - Redstone Rigg, Scott’s View and Dingleton.

A rare chance for Scottish riders to show off in front of a home crowd, unsurprisingly they were to the fore early on. Dundonian Mark Stewart’s An Post Chain Reaction team staged a show of strength on the streets of Auld Reekie, while Tao Geogheghan Hart - whose father hails from Scotland - was the Team Sky member trusted to do his turn on the front to ensure this stage came down to a bunch sprint.

If Ewan emerged as the day’s strongest sprinter, the crowd’s sympathy belonged to Karol Domagalski of the One Pro Cycling team. One eighth of a breakaway which established itself at the head of the race with some 170km to go which at one stage had a lead in excess of three minutes, the 27-year-old Pole required patching up after being rear ended by a rival team car, that of his Madison - Genesis breakaway member Connor Swift, as he dropped back to try to get some food on board. Yet he was still standing, with his countryman Lukasz Oswian of the CCC Sprandi - Polkowice team, with just 25km to go. He ended the day in both the Eisberg sprint jersey and being hailed as the day’s most combative rider. Oswian wore the garment of the Skoda King of the Mountains.

For once, there was no rain, but the pernicious Scottish weather was still causing problems. This time the issue was a pesky crosswind which split the peloton in two near the village of Gordon as the course looped through the Borders for the first time.

“It is always nice racing here when it is not raining,” he said. “But the crosswinds made the whole race really uncomfortable. When there is a tailwind you can maybe cruise along. Fortunately, I was in the front group when the field split. I heard over the race radio that the left hand corner was coming up, so I did a quick sprint around the side of the bunch and that was when the hammer went down. We were sitting pretty far near the front most of the day.”

Only 68 of the 196 riders who left Edinburgh finished in this first group but most notables were in it. Geraint Thomas of Team Sky, a man who may have designs on this title, by the time it finishes in his native Cardiff on Sunday, his team-mate and former world time trial champion Michal Kwiatowski, Ireland’s Dan Martin, Philippe Gilbert of Belgium, Germany’s Tony Martin and Alex Dowsett of England. One man who wasn’t though was Dimension Data’s Mark Cavendish. The Manx Man, returning from the horror crash which prevented his attempt to surpass Eddy Merckx’s Tour de France stage win record this year, trailed in 7 minutes 30 back, happy to play second fiddle for once in a bunch sprint to Boasson Hagen.

But the team who definitely got their tactics right in rugby country was Orica Scott. Led out by countryman Luke Durbridge, Ewan had prime position when the cobblestones arrived and was in no mood to drop the ball.