Evans and Schleck must reassess their options

On a weekend when Simon Gerrans and Richie Porte showed the strength of Australian cycling both today and going forward, Cadel Evans reminded the world that his best days are very much in the past.

Evans, the defending Criterium International champion, arrived on the summit of the Col de l’Ospedale on Sunday almost 15 minutes down on stage winner Chris Froome.

Paris-Nice winner Richie Porte took second place as Team Sky posted an imperious one-two on both the concluding stage and GC.

Evans was dropped on the final climb with 10km remaining and finished alongside another Australian, Rory Sutherland of Saxo Bank-Tinkoff, but – perhaps tellingly – none of his BMC team-mates.

The veteran Australian had entered the weekend-long stage race in Corsica on an equal billing with his young American team-mate Tejay van Garderen as BMC lined up their two star riders alongside each other for what will probably be the only time ahead of the Tour’s Grand Depart back in Corsica on 29th June.

If the intention was to allow the pair some race time to gel in what was seen as a mini dress rehearsal ahead of the Tour, the plan was also to deliver last year’s winner to the top of the podium.

That plan was pretty much thwarted from the outset.

Although Dutchman Theo Bos’ win for Blanco in Saturday morning’s opening short stage had no bearing on the ultimate destiny of the race’s yellow jersey, the 7km time trial in Porto-Vecchio proved rather embarrassing for the 2011 Tour de France champion.

With van Garderen finishing just one second down on winner Porte – moments after fellow Australian Gerrans sprinted to success in the penultimate stage of the Tour of Catalunya a few hundred kilometres west across the Mediterranean Sea – Evans somehow contrived to concede 45 seconds in the ITT, coming home in a lowly 75th place.

On his personal website, the 36-year-old downplayed the significance of his time claiming that a “small problem plus a small problem equals a bad TT” but without elaborating on what either of those small problems were.

To reiterate his stance, Evans stressed that the net result was “nothing that affects longer term goals on the horizon” before concluding that he would be in “domestique mode tomorrow to our young Tejay”.

What was perhaps more worrying than seeing a defending champion be downgraded from contender to domestique in the course of one seven-kilometre time trial was the fact that Evans was beaten in the race against the clock by Andy Schleck.

It was precisely Evans’ vastly superior time trialling ability over his young rival that saw the Australian take the yellow jersey off the shoulders of Schleck on the penultimate day of the 2011 Tour.

What’s more, Schleck in 2013 is a mere shadow of himself – a chilling perversion of the talent he used to be.

The Luxembourg de facto 2010 Tour de France champion’s fall from the top makes him the Fernando Torres of cycling – a rider destined for great things who now looks hardly capable of finishing a race let alone competing with the riders he used to rub shoulders with – and beat – two years ago.

On Sunday, Schleck showed glimpses of his past self by getting in an early break on the third and final stage of the Criterium International.

But the escapees were swept up near the summit of the fourth of six climbs and Schleck eventually crossed the line a whopping 22 minutes down on the stage and race winner, Froome.

The gulf in form, class and confidence between Froome and Schleck is quite staggering.

Honestly, at this rate there is no point in Schleck returning to Corsica for the Grand Depart in June.

The 28-year-old would be better off training and targeting the Vuelta than opening himself up to what could be a physical and psychological pummelling of prodigious proportions.

As for Evans, he too was dropped on the final climb of the day and finished almost 15 minutes down on Froome.

Van Garderen took fifth place, 45 seconds down on the in-form Briton, to secure the third rung on the podium below Froome and the equally indefatigable Porte, who is having a scorcher of a season.

If BMC have any sense they will already be planning for the Tour de France with van Garderen in mind as team leader.

Evans’s situation is in no way as precarious as that of Schleck – he did, after all, finish seventh in last year’s Tour and, a former world champion, is one of the peloton’s most experienced riders. But he and his team management need to be realistic.

Van Garderen was fifth in last year’s Tour – and like Froome, did so in ‘domestique’ mode. The 24-year-old has a far better chance at reaching the podium in Paris for BMC than Evans.

The worrying thing for BMC and all the teams who are not Sky, however, is that the likes of Froome and Porte look invincible right now.

Throw in a fit Bradley Wiggins and a workhorse in the mould of Rigoberto Uran, and it’s not entirely inconceivable that Sky go one better this summer and put three – not two – men on the podium in Paris.