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Former champion Cadel Evans’ Tour de France hopes remain faintly alive but on the day race leader Chris Froome took more time off his rivals the Australian admitted he simply didn’t have the legs.
As Froome finished only 12 seconds behind Germany’s Tony Martin, the winner of the stage with a time of 36min 29sec, Evans crossed the finish 2:18 in arrears to the yellow jersey holder.
Having lost 26secs to Froome on the team time trial, then over four minutes to the Kenyan-born Briton on the dramatic eighth stage to Ax-Trois-Domaines, Australia’s 2011 champion is now 14th overall at a massive 6:54 off the pace.
Froome’s closest rival Alejandro Valverde of Spain is now 3:25 adrift in second place with one time trial and four tough mountain stages to go.
Evans, who finished third overall on the Giro d’Italia barely six weeks ago, now looks out of the running for a place on the podium of the 100th Tour de France.
The 36-year-old remains defiant, but he admitted he simply didn’t have the legs to threaten the big specialists like Martin and Froome.
“Looking toward Paris and the end of the race, it would have been ideal to take back more time on some of the rivals ahead of me, but I didn’t have it in the legs today to do better,” he said.
Evans’ BMC team have yet to make their mark on this race with Jim Ochowicz admitting: “We think that the race is far from over. Certainly for us, it’s a lot more difficult to think about winning in Paris.”
Evans added: “From here, I hope to improve myself for the next set of mountains and the next time trial and keep moving ahead on the GC (general classification).”
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