Tour de France champion Cadel Evans has said that he is not too worried by his relatively quiet performance in Tirreno-Adriatico, which ended on Tuesday.
The Australian won the race last year as part of his build up to a very successful Tour de France. He also triumphed in the Tour de Romandie.
This time round, his Tirreno ride was more anonymous. He was eighth on the uphill finish to Chieti, then placed 45th to the stage to Prati di Tivo, losing ten and a half minutes.
Placings of 64th and 49th in the final two stages, the race to Offida and the San Benedetto del Tronto time trial, saw him finish 32nd overall, almost thirteen minutes behind the winner Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas-Cannondale).
However he believes there’s a logical reason why he isn’t as good as in 2011.
"I didn't have the smoothest off-season like I did last year, so there was always the risk that I wasn't going to be at the level I was last year,'' Evans told the Australian newspaper the Daily Telegraph.
He had numerous commitments and appearances due to his Tour de France victory, and had a busier time than in the winter of 2010/2011.
"Looking at it analytically, I'm not riding so poorly as the results would indicate. But there are a lot of people who were riding really well here at a high level of competition.
"So in the scheme of things I am looking forward to the rest of the season.''
Evans had said before the race that he hoped to perform well and so, despite his response, it’s likely that he was surprised by how things played out in the Tirreno race.
The start of his Tour de France defence is over three months away and so there’s no immediate threat to his aim to take a second victory. However he’ll still hope for a better performance in his next races, showing him that he is on track.