THERE is speculation that Australian Olympic medal hope Cadel Evans has been injured after a night partying in Paris to celebrate his podium finish in the Tour de France.
Melbourne radio station SEN quoted a witness who claims to have seen Evans “hobbling” with an apparent knee injury at a Tour after-party.
The witness contacted SEN host David Schwartz and told him he had seen the injured Evans at the party and the injury was to his medial ligament.
If the reports are confirmed, the injury could rule Evans out of competing in Beijing.

Australian rider Cadel Evans of the Silence team has been handed the top bib of number one, traditionally reserved for the winner of previous year’s Tour de France or his team, organisers said.

Evans, runner-up in the 2007 Tour de France, has benefited from the absence of last year’s winner Alberto Contador of Spain and the dissolution of his Discovery Channel team.

Last year, for the first time in the race’s history, the top bib number started at 11 as organisers decided to leave out 1-10 owing to American Floyd Landis’s absence from the ra

CADEL Evans is quite happy to wear a big target on his back in the Tour de France.

Many of the Australian’s peers, past and present, including seven-time winner Lance Armstrong and 2007 champion Alberto Contador, have branded him the favourite for this year’s race.

“I hope they’re right,” Evans, the 2007 runner-up by only 23 seconds, said. “I’m as interested as anyone to find out how the tour goes and, of course, how I go.”

Contador will not defend his Tour de France title, starting Saturday night (Melbourne time), because race organisers did not invite his Astana team, which was embroiled in a number of doping cases last year while under different management.

The Spaniard recently tipped Evans, who has been given the No. 1 bib because of Contador’s absence, to become the first Australian to win the yellow jersey.

“He’s a solid rider who can really make time differences count in the time trials,” Contador said.

Likewise, Armstrong recently told Procycling magazine he liked Evans when asked to pick a winner for this year’s 3557-kilometre, 19-stage race.

But in professional road cycling more than any sport, being the favourite poses a problem —

Evans will be a marked man, his every move watched and covered by his competitors and their teams.

That’s where the 31-year-old’s Belgian team, Silence-Lotto, comes in. It is its responsibility to protect Evans and help him across the line.

“It’s for them to help me and for me also to be able to defend or attack or do whatever needs to be done in the race,” Evans said. “But everyone then in the race is watching you. Of course it changes your tactics.

“It does add a little bit of attention and pressure but it’s not the first time, so we should be able to handle it.”

Last year, after two top-10 finishes in as many attempts, Evans came close to victory, sealed by Contador on the penultimate-stage time trial.

“The team is more focused and motivated than ever before and …

that is comforting,” Evans said.

“They all really see we can actually win this race so everyone’s keen for that.”

The focus of the Silence-Lotto team has also swung away from helping compatriot Robbie McEwen in his campaign for the sprinters’ green jersey, and towards Evans’ bid for overall honours.

Former mountain bike champion Evans shrugged off a bout of tendonitis in his left knee, which kept him off the bike for 10 days, to finish second in the recent Dauphine Libere.

Alejandro Valverde — winner of the week-long Dauphine Libere stage race in France, which is regarded as a good formguide ahead of the tour —

could pose a threat to Evans.

Valverde, sixth in the tour last year, also won the Liege-Bastogne-Liege one-day classic this year.

Other contenders include Russian Denis Menchov, the Rabobank team No. 1 who finished fifth in the 2006 tour, and ProTour rankings leader Damiano Cunego of Italy.

Evans nominated Luxembourg’s Andy Schleck as one to watch, while another Luxembourg rider, Kim Kirchen of the High Road team — which is to change its name to Team Columbia at the start of the tour —

is also a chance.

Schleck’s Australian CSC-Saxo Bank teammate, Stuart O’Grady, is back after a crash during last year’s tour that left him with multiple fractures and a punctured lung.

WIDELY touted as the man to beat at this year’s Tour, Cadel Evans, 31, will start the race in Brest on Saturday with the No1 bib on his back.

The Victorian was second in last year’s Tour, 23sec behind Alberto Contador who will not start this year’s event.

The number one was not used during last year’s event as the doping case that stripped 2006 winner Floyd Landis of his title meant that that result was still under dispute.

Oscar Pereiro was declared the winner of the 2006 Tour and will be the only previous winner to start this year’s race.

Yesterday, the Court of Arbitration for Sport rejected Landis’s appeal against the two-year doping ban for testing positive for synthetic testosterone on the 17th stage of the 2006 Tour.

He was also ordered to pay $US100,000 ($105,000) towards the cost of arbitration over the ban, which started on January 30, 2007.

Contador’s Astana team was not invited to this year’s Tour after the squad was thrown out of last year’s event following a positive sample recorded by Alexandre Vinokourov.

Evans’ mission statement this year is a simple one: “The team is focused and dedicated. We can win so let’s try.”

John Trevorrow, a retired road professional from Geelong and long regarded as Evans’ mentor, believes the Silence-Lotto rider is in picture perfect form heading into the race start.

“The way he’s prepared for the race by training in the Italian high Alps tells me he’s feeling really good about his chances in the Tour,” Trevorrow said. “The thing about Cadel is that he has blossomed and grown as a rider since he made the switch from mountain bikes to the road.

“We all saw it in the way he rode at the Dauphine Libere last month, one of the traditional lead-up races to the Tour.

“His riding was simply brilliant even though he was plagued with a twinge of knee tendonitis which forced him to take a short break off the bike.

“But the break has freshened him up and he’s raring to go.”

A record-equalling 10 Australians will be on the start line for the opening stage, a 197.5km flat run for the sprinters from Brest to Plumelec in Brittany, ideal for Evans’ team-mate Robbie McEwen to win.

But McEwen won’t have it all on his own with Baden Cooke (Barloworld) back on tour after an absence of three years.

Leading 2008 Tour de France favourite Cadel Evans of Australia believes victory this year in cycling’s blue riband event would have equal worth despite the absence of last year’s winner Alberto Contador of Spain.

Asked if the victory would be devalued with no Contador racing, Evans stated flatly: “Not really.
“A lot of people have asked me about this and I’m not annoyed about it, but not really, no.
“I don’t make the rules, I just abide by them,” the 31-year-old Silence-Lotto team leader added.
Contador’s Astana squad have been barred following the doping scandals that rocked last year’s race prior to Contador riding for the team.

Evans, who finished runner-up last year a mere 23 seconds behind the Spaniard after 3,547 kilometres of racing, assumed the role of top contender.
 

“In my first Tour (in 2005) I didn’t know what I could achieve and neither did the team,” he said. “I thought maybe the top ten was possible, but I finished eighth and took it from there.
“I still wasn’t convinced I could win the Tour after the 2006 race, either (when he took fourth place). But after 2007, I think winning is possible. And when they call me favourite, I take it as a compliment.
“Last year I felt proud of my achievements. My Tour had a huge impact in Australia in the media. My mother was interviewed on mainstream TV every night in the second part of the Tour,” he added.
Frequently slated for his failure to attack in previous years, this spring Evans has silenced his critics with four solid wins.

TIME TRIALS
The second during the Paris-Nice race in March was a summit finish on Mont Ventoux, a climb rated “the toughest in France” by seven-times Tour winner Lance Armstrong.
But it is in the Tour’s time trials, not the Alps or Pyrenees, that former MTB World Cup winner Evans feels he will make the difference in the 2008 race.

“Logically, the time trials are where I should do best, and where I should be able to win the Tour.”
Evans has led a major Tour on one occasion, when he was leader of the Giro d’Italia in 2002 during the third week, but then cracked badly on the last climb of the last mountain stage, the Folgaria, losing 15 minutes to eventual winner Paolo Savoldelli of Italy.
“I’m still kicking myself for losing that race.” he said with a rueful grin. “But I can still remember the pressure you have when you’re leading a big race as well.”

Perhaps hinting that he would like to take the lead in the final time trial, Evans said: “The lead (of a major stage race) is a very heavy load to bear and it’s something I’ll remember during this year’s Tour.”

Cycling’s image has been blighted by suspicion after repeated drugs scandals, the latest in the 2007 Tour when race leader Michael Rasmussen of Denmark was expelled for allegedly lying to his team.
But Evans said the sport is doing everything it can. “We (cyclists) must be the most drug-tested individuals on the planet.”

Australia’s Cadel Evans will saddle up as the Tour de France favourite this Saturday with a chance of making history and settling some scores in the process.

Evans came agonisingly close to winning the yellow jersey in 2007, finishing only 23 seconds behind Spanish rival Alberto Contador in a race that, some argue, was artificially modified by the presence of Danish climber Michael Rasmussen.

This year Rasmussen and Contador are both absent, Evans with one main rival in Spaniard Alejandro Valverde and a less-fancied handful of other contenders.
 

Rasmussen became a pariah during last year’s Tour when it was revealed, while he was in the race lead, that he had missed a number of anti-doping controls.

The Dane did not fail a doping test but was still thrown out, although not before he had stamped his authority on the race in a way that some, including Evans, believe changed the stakes entirely.

It was Rasmussen’s attacks on stage 14, for example, that prompted Contador to follow the Dane and beat him to the finish line at Plateau de Beille in the Pyrenees.

Evans struggled to follow, and at the end of the stage dropped down a place to third with Contador moving up to second overall.

When Rasmussen finally departed, Contador took the yellow jersey. The Spaniard then secured it for good with his performance in the penultimate stage time trial.

Their loss, Evans’s gain
Rasmussen was handed a two-year ban from racing on Wednesday.

Contador’s Astana team were not invited to the Tour this year because of doping controversies in 2007 while under different management.

Their absence can only benefit Evans, who in his three previous participations placed eighth [2005], fourth [2006] and second [2007].

Evans also has his entire Silence team, with the exception of sprinter Robbie McEwen, at his disposal and has been boosted by the organisers’ decision to scrap the time bonuses that can be picked up at the end of some stages.

But despite Evans starting as favourite, Valverde should prove a formidable rival.

The 28-year-old Spanish ace dominated Evans in two key races this year – the Liege-Bastogne-Liege one-day classic, and the Dauphine Libere stage race – and his team has plenty of Tour experience.

In climbing terms, Evans and Valverde are on a virtual par although the Spaniard, after working hard to improve his time trialling, has closed the gap significantly in the race against the clock.

At the Dauphine Libere Valverde won the third stage time trial over 31km, pushing Evans into third place. In the end, the Spaniard won the race and Evans finished second.

With the minutest technical details capable of becoming the biggest of problems for most yellow jersey challengers, Evans and Valverde are leaving nothing to chance.

Evans has not been idle, but after working on his own improved time trial position the Australian’s yellow jersey bid came dangerously close to being scuppered when he contracted tendonitis in his left knee.

His ride at the Dauphine quelled any fears, and since then the Aussie has been honing his climbing prowess on the Stelvio climb in Italy.

Time trial assault
With Valverde and Evans so close on paper, the Australian hinted at the Dauphine that he may have to borrow from the race tactics of Spanish legend Miguel Indurain if he is to achieve his aim.

Indurain, the Tour winner in 1991-1995, was a proficient climber who killed off his rivals by dominating the race’s long time trials, of which there are two this year – one stage four [29.5 km] and stage 20 [3km]

“The way I rode the Tour last year was a bit like how Indurain did it. I only took back time in the time trials,” Evans said.

“I’d like to be able to take time in the climbs as well, but when you have two of the best climbers in the world working against you, like I did in last year’s Tour, it’s not always easy.

“It’s not like I’m scared to attack, it’s just that I don’t always have the legs.”

Even Contador, who recently won the Giro d’Italia by controlling his rivals and performing well in the time trials, believes Evans can succeed him.

“My favourite for the Tour is Cadel Evans, he’s a solid rider who can really make time differences count in the time trials,” he said.

For the first time since 1967, the race will begin without a prologue and the first week, instead of featuring flat, sprinter-friendly stages, is peppered with undulating terrain that will be buffered by the unpredictable Brittany winds.

After some medium mountain stages in the Massif Central, the race heads down to the Pyrenees before racing across to the Alps.

Stage 17 of the race, which finishes on the summit of the legendary Alpe d’Huez, is expected to be the race decider.

AS the world’s best cyclists shape up for the Tour de France, Cadel Evans explains why he’ll be taking on the cheats as much as the mountains.

THE Tour de France is stamped as an event that plumbs the depths of human endurance and spirit.

It’s been described as a physical challenge like something out of Greek mythology, where competitors dispatch rivals along the way with an iron-willed brutality.

Nowhere will this be more apparent than in the 2008 Tour, where riders must tackle gut-wrenching ascents, including the highest pass in France — the 2880m Bonette-Restefonds — and the legendary 21-hairpin climb to alpine ski resort L’Alpe d’Huez.

Since its birth in 1903, the Tour has not simply set the standard for bike races, but has come to represent one of the great spectacles of international TV sports coverage.

Year after year, cameras have captured how the Tour has proved a highly dangerous pursuit not only for cyclists, but also media and officials.

Though four competitors have died in accidents — including Italian Fabio Casartelli, who in 1995 crashed at nearly 90km/h during a descent and hit his head on a concrete block — a motorcycle rider and his journalist-passenger died after slipping on gravel and flying off a barrier-free mountain road near Ax-les-Thermes in 1957. A year later, an official was killed after being cleaned up by sprinter Andre Darrigade.

In 2007, a new wave of Australians discovered all that’s exciting, and frightening, about the sport.
A record number of viewers — 1.2 million — watched SBS’s live broadcast of stage 19, where Australian cycling hero Cadel Evans, 31, battled for the leader’s yellow jersey.

In its 18th year of covering the Tour, SBS, eager to capitalise on Evans being race favourite and hopefully the first Aussie to win the event, is delivering almost 84 hours of live coverage.

Though millions worship those who ride the Tour, the inescapable fact is that the reputation of the event has been besmirched by illicit drug use.

Evans, who after more than 3000km was only 23 seconds away from winning last year’s Tour, has the squeakiest of clean images in the sport.

He is adamant cycling officials are proving relentless in the pursuit of drug users. There is a perception of more doping in cycling than other elite sports, Evans suspects, partly because officials in other sports are not so desperate to expose cheats.

‘‘

I’m sure I’ve been beaten by cheats before — I know I have — and I’m sure I’ll be beaten by cheats in the future, so I just go and do the best Tour I can and people who believe in me and people who know me respect me for that,” Evans has said.

At a training camp in the Swiss Alps, he adds: ‘‘

They (cycling officials) are being clean and honest with everything (testing) and I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

Phil Liggett, who will cover the Tour for SBS and is one of the world’s most respected sports commentators, is a former competitive cyclist who has witnessed drug abuse at first hand.

‘‘

Riders have brought this (anti-doping campaign by officials) on themselves,” Liggett says.

‘‘

I used to watch riders inject themselves and they used to say it was their own body and they could do what they like. But it’s (doping) a fraud and I agree with the chase of drug addicts. It will take time to shake this image that all riders are taking drugs. I don’t believe they do.”

Evans became 2008 Tour favourite after the announcement that the talent-packed Astana team was being controversially excluded over doping scandals.

The decision, announced by Tour director Christian Prudhomme, ruled out last year’s champion, Spain’s Alberto Contador, and third place-getter Levi Leipheimer.

Evans finished second to Contador last July, the best Australian result in Tour history and also the three-week classic’s second-closest result.

Evans, who spent the Australian summer at his Barwon Heads home and trained along the Great Ocean Road, is reluctant to share whatever insecurities he might be feeling in the lead-up to the Tour. His low-key approach stems from his aversion to self-promotion and hype. He’s done all he can in training and simply wants the race to start so he can have another crack at what ranks as the America’s Cup of cycling.

Famous for his idiosyncratic, fastidious approach to training, racing and diet, he gives the impression he’s guided by nobody’s expectations but his own, and feels no pressure from his race-favourite status.

‘‘

There’s no problems there. I feel like everyone in Australia is on my side and I like it,” Evans says.

Though the Tour winner’s yellow jersey can ultimately be worn by only one man, Evans, who last year raked in $2 million, knows the importance of team support in a race campaign.

He has full confidence in his Silence-Lotto teammates and has recruited a respected Belgian chef to look after his dietary requirements. Added to the team this year is a bodyguard who’ll ensure Evans is protected from the mobs of fans and media at the end of each Tour stage.

‘‘

We have a cook on the team because, to be honest, French food in hotels is not that good and we need good nutrition,” Evans says.

‘‘

And we need security simply to be able to move around the course. It’s pretty crowded and if there are 10,000 people there you aren’t going to have time for everyone.”

Liggett, who will be joined in Tour commentary by the highly regarded Paul Sherwen and Michael Tomalaris, can’t envisage Evans being beaten.

‘‘

Cadel can win it and win it well,” Liggett says.

Evans spends his working life on two wheels. His hobby, however, is cars, and his favourite TV show is Top Gear.

‘‘

Cars are my passion outside of cycling; I like the classics,” he says.

‘‘

The biggest problem I have is getting used to shifting gears with my left hand. My Aussie cars have almost always been autos, so I often find myself hitting my hand on the door trim when I go to change gear.”

Tour de France favourite Cadel Evans was worried about his knee but the week of racing at the Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré reassured him about his chances to be at the peak of his form in the Tour de France next week, he told Cyclingnews’ Jean-François Quénet in the French Alps.

Cadel Evans seemed pretty relaxed at the end of the mountain stages in the Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré. He came in second overall again – a position he claimed last year behind Christophe Moreau, before getting the same result at the Tour de France behind Alberto Contador. He was not afraid to attack Alejandro Valverde while climbing up to La Toussuire, although the headwind didn’t give him much hope. “I’m climbing well but not well enough for the win,” was his first comment after the stage.

Quickly, he admitted: “I don’t want to be getting too good too soon.” Evans likes the Dauphiné, the format of the race – one week of competition comprising sprints, mountains and time trials –

and the environment of the French Alps. Race organiser Thierry Cazeneuve testified, “Cadel is the only rider who came and thanked me, it was after the podium ceremony last year. He said the race was perfect.” This is just an example of how polite the Australian is and how much he is appreciated in the world of cycling. The image of an individualist he carried when he switched from mountain-biking to road racing is no longer valid.

He came back to the Dauphiné this year with a different approach and a lot of worries. As a runner-up in the Tour de France last year, he’s the logical hot favourite in the absence of Alberto Contador and Michael Rasmussen. “When I look back at last year’s Tour, I think I rode a really good Tour. I got there on the results board, I avoided mishaps and so on. I’m happy with that. It’s done. I don’t have to bother about it now. I’m thinking at 2008 only.” Still, had he kept a steady pace when Rasmussen and Contador went for ballistic attacks in the Pyrénées, instead of trying to follow them, he could have saved the 23 seconds missing in the end.

“I don’t have to bother about it now. I’m thinking at 2008 only.”

- Evans has put the lost Tour last year behind him.

Evans is a very organised champion. He likes to plan everything but his Tour preparation was interrupted by a knee injury. “The last few weeks have been rough for me,” he explained during the Dauphiné. “It was kind of a worrying period for me. I don’t like not being in control of my progress and training, especially when it comes close to the Tour. I had to take a bit of a diversion from my program. Now I’m happy, I’m back at a good level. It’s going well. So far, so good.”

Capitalising on his image as a polite guy, he said: “I have to apologise. Many journalists were calling me, emailing me, but I was concentrating on [treating] my injury and getting back on track towards the Tour.”

The last week of May, when he was forced to not touch a bike, he missed part of his time trial training. “I tried to adapt to a new time trial position but I didn’t have quite as much time as I wanted,” he regretted. During the prologue and the time trial of the Dauphiné, he showed up with his new look: as low as possible. Many cyclists would like to have such a flexible body for such an aerodynamic position.

There’s a big team effort behind Evans’ preparation to the Tour de France. Never in the history has a Belgian team won the world’s biggest race, so the staff of Silence-Lotto is doing all they can to bring their champion into the best position. They even appointed Belgian policeman Serge Borlée, the former bodyguard of Lance Armstrong and Alexandre Vinokourov, for the Tour de France.

“We’re looking to [control] all the details,” explained Cadel, who attracted the directeur sportif he trusted the most to the Belgian staff. It is Roberto Damiani, whom he met during his years at Mapei. “Half a percent is a lot in the end. The input of the mechanics, the cook, the dietician at the races this year are expected to shave off seconds and maybe minutes.”

Silence-Lotto has indicated to Robbie McEwen that he’d have to work the sprints out by himself as the team will be mostly focused on the general classification for Evans. “I’ve always had the idea I want to prove the team what I’m capable of, so I can win its faith and hopefully what I’m capable of is winning its belief in me,” Evans said. “They will work for me and work 110%. Two years ago I wasn’t sure of myself – if I could win the Tour and now all the indications are there that I can, so…

“Of course people are looking to us, we have a very good team but I don’t want to ask the guys to ride at the front from start to finish. We’re not going to control the race. The other team in the history of the Tour that could do that was Discovery Channel, and US Postal before; maybe Rabobank could have done it last year. I’m not going to ask that from our team,” he warned.

There is a main reason for that. “In this year’s Tour without the past champions, we might have a bit of an open Tour again, something like what we had after 2006 when there wasn’t any real favourite. With no prologue and no time bonuses, the first part is going to be probably from [the spectator's] part interesting, and from our part stressful.”

The history of Oscar Pereiro being so special, Evans is the only one of the 2008 Tour de France favourites to have been in a winning position at this race before and it could be tactically to his advantage. “I didn’t give that any thought actually, it might well be…

” he answered. “I learned from my first Giro that a leader’s jersey is very heavy.” He wore the pink jersey with three days to go but lost 17 minutes in the nine last kilometers of the 222-kilometre long stage 17 to Folgaria.

He doesn’t want to speculate anymore about the absence of Contador this year. “It’s just the way it is,” he said. “A lot of people ask me about him but I’m not the one who makes the rules.” He admits to be “a little more focused than last year.” He’s just worried about the last mountain stage of the 2008 Tour de France. “I’ve never had a good day at L’Alpe d’Huez,” he recalled. “But if you look at the mountains and the mountain days all together, it’s similar to last year, so if you are good, you go good…

“

We might see a more aggressive Evans this year, as he already indicated by attacking Valverde up to La Toussuire during the Dauphiné. “It’s not like I’m scared to attack,” he made clear. “It’s just that I don’t always have the legs.”

“I went to my first Tour three years ago and I thought: maybe I can do top 10. I didn’t know what I could do. Now we’re nearly there…

” Cadel said “we” because he knows that he will not win the Tour de France by himself but with the precious help of his staff and his team-mates.

Like rival Alejandro Valverde, Australian Cadel Evans has been training at high altitude in light of the upcoming Tour de France, July 5 to 27. The 31 year-old of Silence-Lotto, second in the 2007 Tour de France, has been training near Passo Stelvio in Italy since last Friday.

The 2757-metre Passo Stelvio is the fourth highest paved road in the Alps. Spaniard Valverde has been training in the Sierra Nevada mountains of Andalucía, Spain, and taking in climbs between 1,500 and 2,000 metres.

Evans has been training with team-mates Dario Cioni, Mario Aerts, Yaroslav Popovych, Christophe Brandt, Johan Van Summeren, Wim Vansevenant and Greg Van Avermaet.