Sitting back in sixteenth place starting today’s time trial, Cadel Evans has said the so-called Race of Truth was going to be precisely that; a good indicator of how he can do overall.
“It is coming together well,” he said, believing that his form has picked up from an anonymous showing on Saturday’s first mountain stage. “I think [the TT] is really going to be a good indicator for not just me – but for maybe those in the top ten or fifteen – of how we're going to progress onto this next part of the Tour.”
Evans had hoped to fight for the overall victory in this year’s Tour, thus repeating the success he had in 2011, but his difficult mountain showing had him four minutes 36 seconds behind Chris Froome (Sky) in the general classification.
However his BMC Racing Team directeur sportif John Lelangue believes that Evans turned things around on Sunday, and that he should be stronger for the remainder of the race.
“He is ready for the rest of the Tour,” he asserted. “I think we saw it already on Sunday, he was back on a really good level with the front group in all the climbs, even if he had to change a bike due to technical problems. He was there in the final so we can go with confidence into the second part of the tour.
As regards today’s test – where Evans has passed the first checkpoint 18th, although he often speeds up as TT’s progress, Lelangue believes it should suit him. “It's a pretty fast time trial, normally with a tailwind, if the wind doesn't change,” he said. “It's not a technical parcours. It's one for the time trialists with the big engines. So we have a lot of hopes to make a good result with Cadel.”