With just today’s stage to get through before tomorrow’s first big mountain stage, Cadel Evans is in the best position of all the general classification contenders. His aim is to steer clear of trouble on today’s wet stage to Lavaur, and then to answer the inevitable attacks from his rivals on tomorrow’s leg to Luz Ardiden.
“Every day this week there has been a little bit too much action for our liking, as a peloton, but so far it has been okay for me,” he told Eurosport immediately before the race start. “We will keep going as we have done so far and then see how things go tomorrow.”
Evans is currently sitting third overall, two minutes 26 seconds behind the race leader Thomas Voeckler (Europcar). He has gained time on all of his general classification rivals, holding a three second advantage on Frank Schleck, eleven on Andy Schleck (both Leopard Trek), twelve seconds on HTC Highroad duo Tony Martin and Peter Velits, seventeen on Andreas Klöden (RadioShack) and one minute ten seconds on Ivan Basso (Liquigas-Cannondale). Defending Tour champion Alberto Contador is one minute 41 seconds behind, requiring the Saxo Bank SunGard rider to attack hard to get time back.
Evans has thus far managed to avoid any problems. He puts this down to his BMC Racing Team, which have guided him in the peloton, and also helped him overcome any bad positioning or other challenges. He says that this has been an important part of his good ride thus far.
“We are half a Classic team, half mountain team. The Classic guys have been very busy keeping me in the best position so far and today will be another day of that,” he said.
The tone of the race will change completely tomorrow. Those mountain riders he mentioned will come into play and, so too, the other GC contenders. Of those, three spring to mind. “Contador and [Andy] Schleck are expected [to attack],” he said. “I think Peter Velits is coming very good at the moment and nobody is talking about him.”
Velits placed an unexpected third overall in last year’s Vuelta a España, and had seemed in strong form thus far. Evans will pay attention to him and all the other big names; today, though, is all about staying out of trouble.