Cadel Evans

Cadel Evans

Cadel Evans at the Tour de France, 21 July 2006.
Personal information
Full name	Cadel Evans
Nickname	Cuddles[1]
Date of birth	14 February 1977 (1977-02-14) (age 32)
Country	Australia
Height	1.74 m (5 ft 9 in)
Weight	64 kg (140 lb/10.1 st)
Team information
Current team	Silence-Lotto
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider
Rider type	All rounder
Amateur team(s)
1994–1997	Australian Institute of Sport (AIS)
Professional team(s)
2001 2002 2003–2004 2005–	Volvo-Cannondale (MTB) Saeco Mapei Team Telekom Davitamon-Lotto/Predictor-Lotto/Silence-Lotto
Major wins
UCI ProTour (2007) Tour de Romandie (2006) Tour de France - 1 stage (2007)
Infobox last updated on:
20 October 2007

Cadel Evans (born Katherine, Northern Territory 14 February 1977) is an Australian professional racing cyclist. In 2007, Evans became first Australian to win the UCI ProTour. He has the highest Tour de France finishes for an Australian, coming second in 2007 and 2008. Before 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 seventh in the men's cross-country mountain bike race at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. He is married to Chiara Evans, an Italian pianist.

Contents 1 Career 1.1 Early days 1.2 2006 1.3 2007 1.4 2008 1.5 Social activism 1.6 Relationship with the media 2 Palmarès 3 References 4 External links

Career

Early days

Evans started his international career as a member of the Australian Institute of Sport MTB team, under head coach, Heiko Salzwedel and MTB coach Damien Grundy. He won silver medals at the 1997 and 1999 under-23 world championships and bronze medals at the 1995 junior world road time trial championship and junior world mountain bike championship.

He has been ridden for Saeco (2001), Mapei (2002), Team Columbia (then named Team Telekom) (2003–2004). For 2005 he joined Davitamon-Lotto and came eighth in his first Tour de France, first Australian in the top ten since Phil Anderson.

2006

Evans bettered his performance in 2006, finishing fourth after the disqualification of Floyd Landis. He won the Tour de Romandie, beating the Spaniards Alberto Contador and Alejandro Valverde on the last stage, a 20km time trial around Lausanne.

2007

In the 2007 Tour de France, Evans finished runner-up to Contador. He won the stage 13 time trial and came second in the stage 19 time trial. Evans finished fourth in the 2007 Vuelta a Espana. He came fifth in the world championship and sixth in the final UCI ProTour race, the Giro di Lombardia, securing the 2007 UCI ProTour with 247 points ahead of Davide Rebellin and Alberto Contador.

Other successes include a stage win in the Tour of Austria in 2001, overall win of the Tour of Austria 2004, fifth 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, 14th 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 and 2007 he was named Australian Cyclist of the Year.

2008

Evans was a favorites to win the 2008 Tour de France because Contador was not allowed to participate as his team Astana were not invited. Evans held the yellow jersey from stages 10 to 14. However, during 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 Sastre. He beat Sastre and jumped to second place but remained 58 seconds behind at the end of the Tour.

After recovering from a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament,^[2] Evans contested the 245km mens road race at the Beijing Olympics, finishing 15th, 22 seconds behind Samuel Sánchez.^[3] He placed fifth in the road time trial four days later.

Social activism

In 2008, Evans wore a cycling undershirt with the Flag of Tibet and supported freedom for Tibet.^[4][5] He said:

Trying to bring awareness of the Tibet movement is something someone in my position can do. I just feel really sorry for them. They don't harm anyone and they are getting their culture taken away from them. I don't want to see a repeat of what happened to Aboriginal culture [in Australia] happen to another culture.

Relationship with the media

Evans is known for confrontation with media and fans.^[6][7] He used a bodyguard at the 2008 Tour de France; it has been suggested that this sparked the tensions, as the more force was used to keep the media away from Evans, the more the attention became.^[7][8] Evans lost his temper and batted away the hand of a journalist from his shoulder, shouted "Stand on my dog and I'll cut your head off" at a bystander who collided with his dog,^[8] and headbutted a television camera.^[9] The actions earned him the nickname "Cuddles" from ProCycling's features editor, Daniel Friebe,^[1] who coined other nicknames in the peloton.^[10]

Palmarès

Sporting positions
Preceded by Alejandro Valverde	UCI ProTour Champion 2007	Succeeded by Alejandro Valverde

References

External links

• Official website
• Cycling Federation rider profile
• Cyclingnews.com interview
• 2006 Tour de France Official Rider Profile
• Cadel Evans profile

Riders on Silence-Lotto Mario Aerts | Volodymyr Bileka | Christophe Brandt | Dario Cioni | Dominique Cornu | Francis De Greef | Wim De Vocht | Dries Devenyns | Glenn D'Hollander | Bart Dockx | Cadel Evans | Gorik Gardeyn | Nick Gates | Leif Hoste | Pieter Jacobs | Olivier Kaisen | Matthew Lloyd | Robbie McEwen | Yaroslav Popovych | Jurgen Roelandts | Bert Roesems | Roy Sentjens | Geert Steurs | Maarten Tjallingii | Greg Van Avermaet | Jurgen Van Den Broeck | Wim Van Huffel | Johan Van Summeren | Wim Vansevenant | Manager: Marc Sergeant

Persondata
NAME	Evans, Cadel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Road bicycle racer
DATE OF BIRTH	1977-02-14
PLACE OF BIRTH	Katherine, Northern Territory, Australia
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH