Tour de France champion Cadel Evans keen for Olympics
Tour de France champion Cadel Evans says he’s keen to put his hand up for the 2012 London Olympics – but he only expects to be selected if the course is hard enough.
The 34-year-old Australian is back at his Switzerland home, experiencing a whirlwind few days as he weighs up the many offers, requests and options that victory in cycling’s biggest race brings.
His breakthrough triumph has prompted a wholesale review of his schedule for the rest of the year as he also starts looking at next year’s program.
Evans would be a major Olympic drawcard if he made the Australian team for the London Games.
He wanted to attend a pre-Olympics meeting on Monday at the Australian cycling base in nearby Varese, Italy, but could not arrive in time after post-victory commitments on Sunday.
A major issue is whether the Olympic road race and time trials courses will be hard enough to suit Evans’ strengths.
“I wanted to go and look into those details – to be honest, I don’t know if the course is going to be suitable,” Evans told AAP by phone.
“But if I can be the man for the job to represent the country, of course I would love to ride.
“If it’s a course more suitable to someone else, then it should be for someone else.”
The Olympic road events in London will come only days after Evans completes his Tour de France title defence.
He saw that as no disadvantage, but said there were other factors to consider as well.
“The timing falls well for us as Tour riders – there’s also an interesting world championships course in 2012 and a few other things,” he said.
“We have to prioritise and choose our goals, but Tour de France 2012 is going to come around really quickly.”
Evans is also unsure whether he will now contest this year’s Vuelta a Espana (Tour of Spain) – like the Tour de France, a three-week Grand Tour – starting on August 20.
“We always had the Vuelta as an idea, but I wanted to decide on that after the Tour, based on performance at the Tour,” he said.
“It’s also about planning for 2012 at this stage.”
Evans’ first ride as Tour champion will come on Friday, when he competes in either The Netherlands or Belgium.
He will ride in one of the traditional post-Tour criteriums, which are exhibition races and offer big money for Tour stars such as Evans.
He’s been so busy this week, he has not had much time to sit back and reflect on his achievement.
“I haven’t had time to stop and think about being tired,” he said.
“I’ve been busy with media commitments and so on, but it’s a slow realisation that I’ve won the Tour de France in 2011.
“There are many, many requests from around the world, but really I’m just trying to enjoy the good work we did and what we achieved as a team, BMC, and everyone who contributed to the whole performance.”
Evans’ management has received several requests to return to Australia for events such as the AFL grand final and the October Herald Sun Tour and he’s in hot demand for January’s Tour Down Under.
His Australian manager Jason Bakker said Evans’ “whole program” was now under review.
“We’ve heard all about the offers and requests from Australia, which have been great – but he can’t just stop riding,” Bakker said.
© AAP 2012Recommend this story.
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July 30th 2011 @ 1:22am
Amber said | July 30th 2011 @ 1:22am | Report comment
Come on down under Cadel…we all want to see you.