Evans happy to be tour’s marked man

03Jul08

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.

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