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It’s been nothing short of a roaring debate here on the ever-aptly named The Roar: has the venerable Cadel Evans, the one and only Australian to ever win the Tour de France, still got a bang or two left in him?
Can he recover from the recent string of poor performances and rescue his season with a fine ride, a stage win or two and possibly a podium at the 2013 Giro d’Italia?
Maybe even an overall win at the Tour later in July?
Or have we seen the best of this plucky rider, the former World Champion who stole the show at the 2011 Tour with a gutsy, intelligent and ultimately winning ride?
Is he on the up and up, or heading downhill?
Here on ‘Cadel’s Giro 2013’ we will be providing selected images from the BMC Racing Team website as well as from Cadel’s own site, taken at the race, and providing as much information as we can on his performances.
Evans hadn’t had the Giro on his schedule this season but those lacklustre early season performances prompted a change of plan.
In his own words, Evans described the pre-race training as “five weeks of condensed but effective preparation.
“If someone asked me six weeks ago if I was riding the Giro, I almost certainly would have ‘maybe next year’ – but here I am – ready and looking forward to getting the race started.”
The hope of course is that the Giro will provide the hard riding that he feels he needs to get himself in top condition for the Tour, still his main goal this season, as stated in a post on his website before stage one.
“After the lost days of competition last year, I need a big block of solid racing to bring myself up, and the Giro will certainly offer that. So tomorrow we start with a short (130km) and surely intense circuit race before heading to the more familiar team time trial and longer road stages.”
Evans came through that stage relatively well, ending the day in 25th position on the same time as the winner, Mark Cavendish of Omega Pharma–QuickStep, despite being held up inside the last 3km.
Writing after the stage, Evans noted the nervousness in the peloton and the very specific challenges of the team time trial that took place today.
“The start of any Grand Tour (Giro, Tour or Vuelta) is always nervous. And today’s unfamiliar conditions added to those nerves. In the final, a crash inside the last 3km split the group – I rolled in with the second group.
“Tomorrow will be interesting in more ways than one. With what looks to be quite a hilly and technical TTT, on the island of Ischia – I’m sure that will look great on tv, but for the team and event staff it’s headache material. For us riders, it will be a long day of travel and transfers for 17km of racing. The scenery will be nice though!”
We here at The Roar will be rooting for Evans throughout the three week race around the beautiful nation of Italy, and you can get your fix of Cadel’s Giro right here!
Cadel Evans’ position after stage two: 60th place, 37 seconds behind joint Team Sky leaders – Dario Cataldo, Sergio Luis Henao Montoya, Bradley Wiggins, Salvatore Puccio, and Rigoberto Uran Uran.
[roargal]
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