Robbie McEwen overcame a rogue civilian and a near crash into the barriers to win an unprecedented 10th stage of the Jacob's Creek Tour Down Under in Tanunda on Wednesday.

In another bunch sprint finish, McEwen just had too much power for Italian Paride Grillo and Queenslander Allan Davis.

The Tour de France sprint champion won clearly, but the margin would have been greater had he not had to change direction about 250m from the line.

“We nearly hit some bloke on his bike with about 800m to go,” McEwen said. “He was just riding along the road. It's bad enough with the parked cars and then a bike tourist out for a leisurely ride and he ends up in the bunch.

“I just kept pushing up on the left side and moving up, moving up. I think some guys got maybe a little bit thrown by that archway across the entrance to Tanunda, but I'd seen the 400m to go sign and knew I still had time.

“I folowed the Panaria guy (Grillo), but I wanted to pass him on the left and he came across to the barriers. I had to brake a little bit, hold back, go back around him and go on the right, so it took me a little bit longer to get around him than I planned for, but I still got there and that's the important thing.”

McEwen (Davitamon Lotto) now leads overall by six seconds from Davis (Liberty Seguros) with Frenchman Mickael Delage (Francaise des Jeux) and Australian David McKenzie (United Water) equal third at seven seconds off the pace.

Mindful of last year when the tour was won by a breakaway on the second day, McEwen said he was wary of a four-man break that established soon after the start of yesterday's 150km stage from Salisbury.

Those four riders, which included Delage, McKenzie, Ireland's David O'Loughlin (Navigators Insurance) and Hungarian Laszlo Bodrogi (Credit Agricole), led by 5min.40sec. at one point before they were overhauled at the 129km mark.

O'Loughlin and crew built a 5:40 lead at one point... but then the chase started

Photo: Graham Watson

In the interim, they accumulated all the bonus sprints points at Williamstown and Mt Pleasant and the king of the mountain classification on Smith Hill with O'Loughlin also picking up the day's most aggressive rider award.

McEwen praised his teammates who joined with Stuart O'Grady's Cofidis outfit and Davis's Liberty Seguros squad to reel in the break.

“They took six minutes very, very quickly and if we hadn't got organised and started chasing they probably would have had 12 or 14 minutes and we wouldn't have caught them,” McEwen said. “You've got to be prepared to put in the hard work and my boys were and we showed; we did the most work throughout the race today and I think we really deserved the stage win.”

With Grillo fifth at 8sec. behind and O'Grady and Bodrogi equal sixth at 10sec. off the pace, and another 80 riders at 12sec. behind in the GC, the tour is still wide open, a fact McEwen acknowledged.

“Anything could happen in this race,” he said. “Don't forget Cadel Evans, if he slips into a break, Mario Aerts ... we've got probably four guys in this team who could win overall if they slipped into a break.

“So maybe I can play decoy. When you're riding around with form guys start watching you, so it's not going to be easy to slip into a break, so maybe one of my teammates can.”