Cadel Evans was slowly coming to terms with his maiden Tour de France victory Monday as Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck were left wondering what might have been after a suspense-filled 98th edition. Evans, a two-time runner-up, made history for Australia Sunday as he became only the third non-European to win the world’s premier cycling event.
After a series of mishaps compromised his bids in 2009 and 2010, when Contador took his second of three wins, Evans capped a solid campaign to finally came good on the race he dreamt of winning as a 14-year-old.
“It’s been years of hard work and there were a lot of moments in these three weeks where our Tour was lost but to get here safely with all my skin… just that alone is a quest in itself,” said Evans. After delaying the start to his season, Evans took morale-boosting victories at the Tirreno-Adriatico and Tour of Romandie stage races.
In a final top-up he went to the Criterium du Dauphine where, on the way to a fourth runner-up place, he rode to sixth place on the same time trial course that was used on the Tour and which proved decisive for his victory. Paying that kind of attention to detail made all the difference, as Schleck, who raced the Tour of Switzerland to prepare instead, found to his cost when he trailed home 2:30 behind Evans on Saturday to lose the race by 1:34. Yet it was clear from the start that the 98th edition would be more than about just Contador and Schleck.
Organisers had brazenly shook up the first week, a combination of uphill finishes, technical finales and a team time trial providing a little bit of something for everyone.
As Philippe Gilbert claimed an expected victory, and the yellow jersey, on stage one atop Mont des Alouettes, Evans finished only a few seconds off the pace in second.
In ominous fashion, Contador got tangled up in a crash and lost over a minute to his rivals. It would be just the start of his, and many other riders’ woes.
By the time Frenchman Thomas Voeckler began his 10-day spell in the yellow jersey after dispossessing Norwegian powerhouse Thor Hushovd on stage nine, the crashes which marred the race until then had decimated the peloton. First to go among the yellow jersey contenders was Britain’s Bradley Wiggins after the Team Sky leader, fourth overall in 2009, broke his collarbone.
Belgium’s Jurgen van den Broeck, fifth last year, followed suit on the stage nine crash which also effectively ended the career of Kazakhstan legend Alexandre Vinokourov when he fractured a thigh bone. Criticism was levelled at organisers for what some in the peloton believed was a poor choice of roads. But with no major time trial or prologue setting a hierarchy, the nerves of the yellow jersey contenders’ teams were frayed on a daily basis as they battled to keep their men at the front for fear of being dropped.
Evans’s BMC outfit were among the best at the task. By the time he reached the Pyrenees he was within seconds of both the Schlecks as Contador, still trailing, began complaining of a sore knee. After three days of climbing in the Pyrenees Evans resisted most attempts to drop him, and it seemed the Schleck brothers were getting frustrated.
After stage 14 to Plateau de Beille where the Schlecks’ rivals simply soaked up a series of small attacks, they complained no one wanted to race them. “All the others just looked at each other. Me and my brother and Basso, we tried to actually race,” said Frank. A defiant Evans warned he would continue to race on his own terms.
“The Schleck brothers are there, they ride all day, they’ve got the yellow jersey to gain and they look at me to pull for them? “I was thinking ‘Hang on a second, I’m not here to tow you to Paris’.” On the second of three days in the Alps, the Schlecks threw it all on the line. Andy attacked 62 km from home on an epic 18th stage to the Galibier summit, where he took the win and put himself within 15secs of Voeckler’s lead.
Evans, however, showed class and determination as he led a tiring group of favourites almost single-handedly over 12 km in pursuit of the Luxemburger before finishing 2:15 behind. After the Australian kept pace with the Schlecks on the hilly 19th stage climb to Alpe d’Huez, where Contador had tried in vain to go out in a blaze of glory, the enormity of his epic ride the previous day became clear.
