Tour de France 2013: A Tour too far for Cadel

Cadel Evans’ heroic podium finish at this year’s savage Giro D’Italia drew praise from all cycling watchers, but the “elephant in the room” sized question remained, would he be able to back up and make a significant challenge in July?

We all hoped so, but recent history suggested that arguably Australia’s greatest ever cyclist would fall short as we hadn’t seen a successful Giro-Tour double since Marco Pantani in 1998.

The dramatic events in the Pyrenees last weekend supported the doubter’s arguments even though Evans managed to hang in there on the second day when a number of others, including his teammate Tejay van Garderen suffered a double dose of time losses.

Chris Froome put at least another two minutes into nearly all his rivals including Cadel in the first Individual Time Trial, and as we have just witnessed, was far too strong on the brutal slopes of Ventoux.

For the record, Cadel finished 31st, 8m 46s behind Froome, and goes into the second rest day 16th at 15:40 on GC.

With 21 climbs rated Category three or above to come, Cadel has loads of opportunities to aim for a higher place on GC before the Tour reaches Paris.

Conversely, he has many more opportunities to lose time.

But Cadel has always said he’ll be at his best in third week so on what we’ve seen so far what can he expect to achieve and what will be considered an “acceptable” performance?

Even though there are still stages left of this year’s Tour, it’s fair to say Cadel has been disappointing.

Sure, he might be one of the oldest riders in the race, but he prepared in exactly the way he wanted and had his strongest ever team to shepherd him on another three-week lap of France.

So why has it gone so badly without Cadel not really ever firing a shot?

Cadel is known as someone who leaves nothing to chance and is fanatical about looking at all the small details, but if he had his time back, would he have change anything?

In 2011, Cadel prepared for a glorious Tour de France campaign by racing in the Strade Bianchi, Tirreno-Adriatico, Volta a Catalunya, Tour de Romandie, and the Criterium du Dauphine. He won Tirreno-Adriatico and Romandie and finished second in the Dauphine, racing for a total of 29 days.

This year, he actually raced more days, 41 in fact, at the Tour of Oman, Strade Bianchi, Tirreno-Adriatico, Criterium International, the Giro del Trentino and of course, the unforgettable Giro.

He didn’t win any races but did finish third at the Tour de France and the Tour of Oman.

This compares to 30 days racing by Chris Froome, whose last race before the Tour was the Dauphine in early June.

So Cadel has raced more, but given he didn’t compete again after the Giro, has had much more recovery time ahead of the Tour.

Given Cadel’s inability to respond to attacks in the past week, you could argue, the Giro took too much out of him, but you could also ask questions about BMC’s selection.

Much was made of Cadel’s Tour de France support crew given six of the riders were there with him in 2011 and there’s Tejay van Garderen and Philippe Gilbert to complete the team.

Despite his terrible Tour, Tejay’s selection (7th last year and best young rider) was a no-brainer but if BMC was serious about Cadel challenging for the podium, did Gilbert merit a place on the team ahead of say Mathias Frank?

Frank was in rich form, coming off the back of an impressive fifth place in the Tour de Suisse, a race he led for six days until the final stage Time Trial.

Gilbert was clearly chosen for stage wins on the medium mountain and so-called “transition” stages, but hasn’t exactly been in stellar form this year with no race wins and 11 top ten places.

Would the addition of Frank made any difference? Possibly not, but it may have helped Cadel if he had ridden more with his Tour de France team in the lead-up races.

Cadel and Tejay didn’t race together after the Criterium international in March.

At the Giro, Cadel’s team included only one rider who would go on to the support him in July, Steve Morabito.

Contrast this with Team Sky who had the same team at the Dauphine as they selected for the Tour.

And even at the Tour of Oman in February, Froome had three of his Tour riders, plus Brad Wiggins for company. Cadel had Gilbert, Bookwalter and Schar.

Of course, there’s no denying that maybe Cadel’s age is also a bridge too far. At 36, he was aiming to become the oldest rider to win the Tour, and while that may be a factor, for me it’s not the main reason Cadel has struggled to make an impression in July.

For whatever reason, BMC has messed up Cadel’s program.

Team selections haven’t worked and it has to be said, neither has his race schedule done him any favours.

Remember, Cadel was pressed into riding the Giro when it was clear his early season results weren’t meeting expectations.

After an injury and illness plagued 2012, Cadel was keen to bounce back in July, but after a promising start in Oman, he seemed to be fading.

The Giro gave many of us hope, but after such a weather-cruelled race, the question of recovering sufficiently for July became an even bigger one.

There is still a week for Cadel to make me eat my words, and I will happily do so, but to be honest I can’t see it.

What hurts more though is that the team that built itself around Cadel to win Grand Tours – and succeeded has now lost its way. Team BMC has not served Cadel well this year, and it’s hard to see how, when it comes to July at least, they make it up to him.

If he continues to fade, it could the last time we see Cadel in le Tour and that would be a sad way for him to say goodbye to a race he has contributed to in such an unforgettable way.

Of course, there are other Grand Tours to aim for, but the Tour still stands head and shoulders above the rest and it would be nice to see a champion rider go out on his terms.