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The planets are aligning for stars Cadel Evans and Richie Porte ahead of Sunday’s elite road race at the Australian cycling championships.
The odds had already shortened for the pair once defending champion Simon Gerrans was ruled out with a pre-Christmas broken collarbone.
That had the dual effect of one less main rival and top Australian team Orica-GreenEDGE having to recast their tactics.
Evans was runner-up and Porte third behind Gerrans in last year’s pulsating race.
GreenEDGE have dominated the elite men’s road race since their 2012 inception, winning the last three editions.
But on paper they look less dominant this time.
Forecast wet weather – a rarity at the nationals – will not bother Evans and Porte.
And they will bring top form.
Porte showed he is back to top fitness by beating a world-class time trial field on Thursday and winning his first national title.
Evans is keeping a low profile ahead of his farewell tour – Sunday’s race, the Tour Down Under and finally the February 1 Cadel Evans Great Ocean Rd event.
But former Australian professional Allan Peiper, the performance director at Evans’ BMC team, has no doubt about the 2011 Tour de France champion’s condition.
“From what I’ve heard, he’s in great shape,” Peiper said.
“He’s relaxed, he’s motivated – some rumours say he’s as light as he was in 2011 (when Evans won the Tour de France).
“Knowing Cadel, he’s not coming to have fun.
“He wants to be on form.”
Evans will also have BMC team-mates Rohan Dennis and Campbell Flakemore to help him in the road race.
Porte will be by himself, while Orica-GreenEDGE will have only eight riders.
That is slightly down on the weight of numbers that GreenEDGE have used to help dominate the race.
Peiper said the key for Evans and Porte will be monitoring a break that will inevitably form early in the 183km race on the hilly circuit at Buninyong, near Ballarat.
“The big thing will be for us trying not to let too big a breakaway go,” Peiper said.
“As long as that time for the breakaway isn’t too out of control – let’s say it’s not more than a couple of minutes – it should be doable for Cadel and Richie in the last four or five laps.”
GreenEDGE rider Luke Durbridge, who won the race two years ago, and Adam Hansen are threats.
Peiper said Heinrich Haussler was another rider who could challenge.
But Peiper knows better than anyone that upsets can happen in this race.
Six years ago, Peiper was a director at the top-level Columbia team.
Two Columbia riders, Hansen and Michael Rogers, contested the finish with local Sydney rider Peter McDonald – and McDonald inexplicably won.
It is the stuff of legend that Peiper took his two riders behind a parked van near the finish and tore strips off them.
“I tell you what, I was very disappointed, that’s a fact,” he said.
“I could have put my head in a bucket of sand.”
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