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The first week of the 2013 Tour de France has certainly been an eventful one, especially for Australian fans.
With the success of Orica-GreenEDGE has come an excitement that is reminiscent of Cadel Evans ride to victory in 2011, although with a different feel to it than that momentous achievement by the Team BMC rider.
Evans, who had come so close in previous editions, stayed in contact with his main rivals throughout the mountain stages and then blew them away on the individual time trial, the penultimate stage of the Tour.
Leading up to that time trial had been an agonising near three week wait with fingers crossed for Aussie cycling fans, hoping that Evans could stay on course and avoid the bad luck that he had endured before and that hits so many contenders at the wrong time on such an arduous journey.
Just ask Bradley Wiggins, whose fall in that same race cost him a broken collarbone and any chance at victory.
So it was a slow build in a way – steady as she goes, wait and see, don’t worry about stage wins-mentality that those of us staying up to watch on SBS every night had adopted.
And always keeping one eye on the peloton for the whereabouts of Andy Schleck.
How times change.
Schleck, although riding seemingly comfortably and only 33 seconds off the lead in this edition, has dropped off the list of contenders since Cadel Evans destroyed him in that time trial in 2011.
And Evans has not been the one dominating headlines in Australia in the first week of this tour as he has done in the past, registering little more than a footnote in most reports this week as to his overall position and time in relation to his rivals.
This will probably be to his advantage as the spotlight is now firmly fixed on the new darlings of the Australian cycling public, Orica-GreenEDGE, and their ability to deliver more immediate success.
Don’t get me wrong, the Tour de France is definitely an event that is about the long game, but the interest of a fickle public that are perhaps not as dedicated to the sport as the more die-hard of fans has been guaranteed due to the Australian team’s ability to provide stage wins and race leaders in the first week, when most casual observers may have lost interest.
And GreenEDGE has given the undecided Australian someone to root for.
That will all change tonight, of course, as the Tour heads into the mountains for the first time and the battle for the general classification really begins.
This is where the big contenders will take over and the sprinters will drop away, the fast men’s focus now turning to survival rather than crossing the line in first position.
Pre-race favourite Chris Froome is expected to show his class early and dominate from here on out, with a strong Team Sky backing him up and attempting to grind rival teams into the bitumen of the Pyranese.
Froome has looked untroubled so far in this year’s edition and is the best placed of the main contenders in seventh position overall, eight seconds from the lead.
His recent form, and his performance in last year’s race, would suggest that in the mountains there is no one that can match him and that the only obstacles between him and a place atop the podium in Paris are luck and the weight of expectation favouritism brings.
It remains to be seen how heavy that weight will be.
The Briton entered last year’s race as backup for the victorious Bradley Wiggins, but is team leader this year of what is again expected to be the strongest group of mountain riders in the Tour.
Wiggins is not riding in 2013 due to illness and lack of preparation but, even if he had, Froome would still have been the man Team Sky would be backing for the win, so has had time to get used to being his team’s main focus.
And then, of course, there is Alberto Contador.
The Spaniard, back in the race in which he has had so much success after serving his suspension for doping, is motivated and determined to do all he can to prove he is not a spent force.
Contador is eleventh, 14 seconds from the lead and buoyed by an excellent performance for his team Saxo-Tinkoff in the team time trial, a team that the Spaniard has described as the best that has ever been assembled for him in a Tour de France.
Importantly for Contador, teammate and Australian Michael Rogers is also looking in good form, only one spot below his team leader in the general classification.
Rogers rode for the successful Team Sky last year and, with him in support, the two-time champion might just pull off something special.
So what about Cadel, the man we had previously pinned all our hopes of success on in the greatest cycling race in the world?
His chances took a knock in the time trial, Team BMC finishing ninth and 26 seconds behind winners Orica-GreenEDGE and leaving Evans in 28th place in the GC.
It is time he will have to make up somewhere along the line on rivals that are all known as better climbers than he is, but one thing we can all count on is that Evans won’t give up and neither will his team.
For now, he just needs to keep up with the pace in the mountains and be ready to take advantage of any luck that might come his way.
He must be revelling, however, in the easing of pressure that GreenEDGE has allowed him and may just have a surprise or two in store for us Aussie cycling fans.
Even if not, however, we cannot be too disappointed as we have been spoilt for success so far.
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