In the Giro d’Italia for the past two weeks, there have been highs and lows for Cadel Evans. He took the maglia rosa with a strong ride on a summit finish.
Coming into an up and down time trial, many thought Cadel’s early race form would see him take a stranglehold on the lead. But it was Uran who put in the greatest time-trial effort of his career, taking the lead with 37 seconds over Cadel.
Now Nairo Quintana has announced himself and Cadel will do well to fend off Pierre Rolland and remain on the podium.
With Cadel’s fall from first to third, it became apparent that he no longer has the legs to challenge in Grand Tours. His body can no longer keep up with his mind. When you hear Cadel speak he’s always focusing on the positives and maintains he can still shake up the GC.
It got me thinking, what if Cadel had come across to road cycling earlier in his career? He was 23 when he started road cycling full-time. The majority of his GC contenders throughout his career have been almost pure road cyclists, forming their craft through the junior ranks before inevitably breaking through in the pro-peloton.
It’s well known that a real GC contender doesn’t arrive at his peak until his mid-to-late 20s. There are obvious outliers such as Quintana.
Cadel himself didn’t win the Tour until his mid-30s. So what if he had moved across to road cycling earlier?
It’s well documented that Cadel has a rather high lung capacity and is a persistent rider. Had he moved across earlier would he have become a classics rider? He has the ability to break away from the peloton and then use his time trialling form to stay ahead as we saw in the 2009 World Championships.
Or would he have become more dominant in road cycling? He challenged Carlos Sastre and Alberto Contador before his breakthrough win in 2011. Had he had more experience on the road would he have possibly won another Grand Tour?
Of course these are hypotheticals, we’ll never know. Do you think he could have performed better had he taken a different path?
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