When will Aussies open their arms to Evans?

 

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By Adrian Musolino, 24 Jan 2010 Adrian Musolino is a Roar Expert

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 cadel evan, Cycling, Mark Webber, Tour de France, Tour Down Under

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On Saturday’s decisive stage of the Tour Down Under on Willunga Hill, Cadel Evans attacked. In his rainbow jersey, representing his world champion status, Evans went some way to repairing the unjust persona that the Australian public has formed of the Tour de France runner-up.

Although it wasn’t enough to snare the lead, Evans’ attack was an early indication of the hunger that is driving him in 2010 – a hunger to continue to prove the doubters who weren’t silenced by his road racing world championship victory in Switzerland last year wrong.

Evans, for all his successes and Tour de France podiums, remains an enigma to many Australians, and even disliked by some.

It is a public perception that even he acknowledges exists.

The run-ins with the media during the 2008 Tour de France certainly didn’t help Evans’ persona at a time when his profile was rising in Australia, but the perception seem to have developed over that time through ignorance.

Evans, in my mind, shares the same misfortune as Mark Webber – Aussie athletes trying to breakthrough in highly competitive international sports that are not well followed or understood by mainstream Australia.

As Evans told WWOS: “Cycling’s a great sport and if you understand it, it really is interesting, but if you’ve ever tried to explain cricket to an American you’d understand that it’s kind of difficult to explain to someone. Because we don’t have the culture and the history as they do in Europe, [here in Australia] people watch it, they like it but they don’t fully understand.”

When combined with the sheer difficulty of reaching the highest echelon of their respective sports, their results and lack of wins are too often used as fodder in the arguments about their ability, adding to their negative perceptions in a success-driven sporting culture.

And even more than Webber, Evans doesn’t fit the Australian sportsman stereotype.

He has been a vocal supporter of the “Free Tibet” campaign, even meeting the Dalai Lama recently.

Living and mainly playing in Europe with a non-Australian partner, like Webber, there are few opportunities for either to connect with Australia and little reason for the media to pay much attention to them, particularly with their records in Australia – Evans hasn’t competed at the Tour Down Under in recent years and Webber’s record in the Australian GP is awful, aside from his debut 5th place.

But Evans’ attack at the Tour Down Under was a great occasion for he and Australian cycling – our first road racing world champion at the pro level doing what he does best on home soil; a critical ingredient in what is being described as the day the Tour Down Under came of age.

In the rainbow colours, 2010 will be a crucial year for Evans, with all eyes on his performance at the Tour de France. His new BMC Racing Team may be new (not even guaranteed Tour de France entry as yet – although that should be a formality), but in the likes of George Hincapie he has the type of domestique that he lacked in his previous Tours.

His season will end with his world championship defence on the roads of Geelong in what could be a defining moment in his attempts to change the public perception of him – an unjust perception that must change.

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