Cadel Evans will start the 2010 Tour de France as one of the main favorites, having finished second of the three-week tour through France twice in his career. He joined team BMC this season, which added a bit of a risk in his preparations, racing the Giro d'Italia in May. It took a good rest period to get the Australian back on track, but now he is eager to get the race underway in the Netherlands.
Evans usually prepares the Tour de France with the Dauphiné Libéré, having raced the Giro d'Italia only once before, in 2002. He finished 14th then, in his second season as a professional in Europe. In 2010 he once again gave the Giro a shot. "This was a little bit due to the fact that we are a new team, so there was the chance that we wouldn't ride the Tour. It was a little bit of a risk and a little bit of an experiment."
Evans won't know yet if the experiment works, but admits that "the Giro was quite tiring. I took a recovery period afterwards." Don't picture this as hanging out on the beach for weeks on end. "I went on holiday with my bike and my family."
Evans says that careful planning is of utmost importance, but knows that even that can sometimes not be enough. "I guess they scored," he chuckles as loud cheers erupt throughout Rotterdam, when the Dutch soccer team tied the score against favored Brazil in the World Cup in South Africa. Evans draws laughter when he says that "now no-one is going to be interested in what I have to say now."
This fear is unfounded, as the Australian goes on about his goals. "Two times second, so one place better would already be quite something!" he says.
He is happy that the team is coming together, confirmed by good showings of Steve Morabito and Marcus Burghardt in the Tour de Suisse. They will be key helpers together with George Hincapie and Alessandro Ballan, the former Tour of Flanders winner, over one of the most difficult parts of the early Tour de France stages, the famous cobble sections.
Cobbles are new for Evans
The seasoned Evans is quite inexperienced at the discipline. "Of course I have been on pavé many times, but real cobbles, that is something new for me. Going in there with Alessandro, George, Marcus and Steve - they know better than I do, so hopefully I can just follow them to the right places."
He still knows that while the race can be only won in the third week, it could be totally lost in the first. "The stages with the cobbles can be very, very nervous and a nervous stage is a dangerous stage." BMC has a great team together for the cobbles, so Evans heads into the first week with confidence. "But I think all the riders for the overall will also look at it with a little bit of anxiety. We don't have a great deal to gain in one flat stages, but of course we have a lot to lose."
Despite that, he is surprisingly uncritical of the drastic change in routing this year, having already raced over dirt in the Giro d'Italia. "The Strade Bianche were Strade Marrone [brown streets, as rain made the white gravel roads quite muddy -ed.] this year, but the I think for the interests of the photographers, the TV and the spectators it was enormous. As a rider you never want unnecessary risks, but something outside of the ordinary is good for the development of the sport and brings more interest."
Evans says that all indicators show his training is on track. "I go into this race with the highest expectations of myself." But he knows the results also depends on his competitors and other external factors. "I can't say on the eve of the Tour de France what I will or might do, cause honestly I don't know what I am capable of. Hopefully better than in the past."
Winning the Tour would be a dream come true, but the yellow jersey is not the nicest jersey for him to get. "Wearing the yellow in the Tour is certainly something special, but the rainbow jersey, you get to wear for a year. That is probably one of the greatest honors you can have in cycling."
Evans has fond memories of winning the title last year near his home in Switzerland. "I rode the last four kilometers solo on a road that I always come home on during my training."
By winning the title Evans silenced his critics. "It is a stamp of approval. I did my first Worlds in 1994, when I came in second behind Martinez in the [U19] mountain bike Worlds. I have been trying to win a worlds title ever since."