Cadel Evans

Cadel Evans
Personal information
Full name	Cadel Evans
Height	1.74 m (5 ft 8+1⁄2 in)
Weight	64 kg (141 lb; 10.1 st)
Team information
Current team	Silence-Lotto
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider
Rider type	All rounder
Major wins
	Tour de Romandie (2006) ; UCI ProTour (2007) ; Tour de France - 1 stage (2007)

Cadel Evans (born 14 February 1977, in Katherine, Northern Territory) is an Australian professional cyclist. In 2007, Evans became the first Australian to win the UCI ProTour. Evans has claimed the highest Tour de France finishes for an Australian, placing 2nd in both 2007 and 2008 events. Prior to turning to road cycling in 2001, Evans was a champion mountain biker, riding for the Volvo-Cannondale MTB team, winning the World Cup in 1998 and 1999 and placing 7th in the men's cross-country mountain bike race at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. Cadel is married to Chiara Evans, who is an Italian pianist.

Career

Cadel Evans started his International career as a member of the Australian Institute of Sport MTB team, under the leadership of A.I.S. Head Coach, German-born Heiko Salzwedel and MTB Coach Damien Grundy. He was an exceptional Mountain Biker, winning Silver medals at the 1997 and 1999 MTB U23 World Championships, but also won Bronze medals at the 1995 Junior World Road Cycling Time Trial Championships and Junior World Mountain Bike Championships.

During his career on the road he has been a member of the following teams: Saeco (2001), Mapei (2002), Team Columbia (then named Team Telekom) (2003–2004). For the 2005 season he signed with Davitamon-Lotto, and on his first Tour de France later that year achieved 8th place in the overall General Classification, the first Australian to place in the top ten in the Tour de France since Phil Anderson. He bettered this performance in 2006, finishing 4th overall in the General Classification, post the disqualification of winner Floyd Landis.

In 2006, he won the Tour de Romandie, snatching the leader's jersey off two Spaniards, Liberty Seguros' Alberto Contador and Alejandro Valverde, on the last stage (a 20.4 km Individual Time Trial around the Swiss city of Lausanne.)

In the 2007 Tour de France, Evans finished runner up in the general classification to Alberto Contador, cementing his position as one of the best cyclists in the world and highest placed Australian ever in Le Tour. He dominated riders such as Carlos Sastre and Alejandro Valverde in the mountains, and finished first in the stage 13 time trial and second in the stage 19 time trial. Evans finished just off the podium as 4th overall in the 2007 Vuelta a Espana. He capped off his year with a strong 5th place finish in the road race at the UCI Road World Championships and in the final UCI ProTour race of the year, the Giro di Lombardia, he finished in 6th place, securing the 2007 UCI ProTour title with 247 points, ahead of Davide Rebellin and Alberto Contador. The 2007 Giro d'Italia winner Danilo Di Luca was the ProTour leader until he was removed from the ProTour rankings due to a three month ban for his role in a drugs scandal.

Some of his other successes as a road cyclist include a stage win in the Austria Tour in 2001, overall win of the Austria Tour 2004, 5th in the Tour of Germany in 2005, a stage win of the Tour Down Under in 2002, winning the Mountains Classification in the Tour Down Under in 2006, fourteenth place in the 2002 Giro d'Italia (he wore the leader's jersey, Maglia Rosa for one day), and Commonwealth Games time trial Champion in 2002. In 2006 he was crowned Australian Cyclist of the Year, and in 2007 he reprised the award.

2008

Evans was considered as one of the favorites to win the 2008 Tour de France largely due to the fact that title holder Alberto Contador was not allowed to participate as his team Astana were not invited to the Tour. Evans began the race wearing the the #1 race number (dossard) due to his 2nd place finish in 2007. Evans rode strongly throughout the tour, and held the yellow jersey from stages 10 to 14. However, during the climb of the Alpe d'Huez on stage 17, Carlos Sastre of Team CSC took 2 minute 15 seconds from Evans. By the penultimate stage time trial, Evans needed to ride 1 minute 34 seconds faster than yellow jersey wearer Sastre. The majority of the team managers and cycling pundits agreed that Evans would be able to make up the deficit. However, though he beat Sastre on the day, and jumped to second place on the General Classification, Evans was unable to overcome the deficit and remained 58 seconds behind at the end of the tour.