Cadel Evans

Cadel Evans

Cadel Evans at the teams presentation for the 2010 Tour de France
Personal information
Full name	Cadel Evans
Date of birth	14 February 1977 (1977-02-14) (age 34)
Place of birth	Katherine, Northern Territory, Australia
Height	1.73 m (5 ft 8 in)
Weight	64 kg (140 lb; 10.1 st)
Team information
Current team	BMC Racing Team
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider
Rider type	All rounder
Amateur team(s)
1994–1999 2001	Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) Victorian Institute of Sport (VIS)
Professional team(s)
2001 2002 2003–2004 2005–2009 2010–	Volvo-Cannondale (MTB) Saeco Macchine per Caffè Mapei-Quick Step Team Telekom Davitamon-Lotto BMC Racing Team
Major wins
Tour de France 1 Stage Giro d'Italia 1 Stage Points Classification, (2010) Paris–Nice, 1 stage La Flèche Wallonne (2010) Tour de Romandie (2006) Tour of Austria (2001, 2004) Settimana internazionale di Coppi e Bartali (2008) Points Classification, Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré (2009) World Road Race World Champion (2009)
Medal record Competitor for  Australia Road bicycle racing Commonwealth Games Gold 2002 Manchester Individual Time Trial Silver 2002 Manchester Road Race World Championships Gold 2009 Mendrisio Elite Men's Road Race
Infobox last updated on 30 May 2010

Cadel Lee Evans (born 14 February 1977) is an Australian professional racing cyclist for UCI Professional Continental team BMC Racing Team, and the reigning world road race champion. In 2007, Evans became the 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, first riding for the Diamondback MTB team, then 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 became the first Australian to win the UCI Road World Championships cycling event on 27 September 2009 in Mendrisio, Switzerland.^[1]

Evans was born in Katherine, Northern Territory, he is married to Chiara Passerini, an Italian music teacher whom he met at the end of 2002 after an introduction from a friend of her father's who assisted the Australian with lodgings near the training centre of his Mapei team (at the time). Evans inherited his surname from his great-grandfather who hailed from Wales. He also believes his first name is of Welsh origin.^[2] Evans attended Eltham High School in Melbourne, Victoria during his teenage years.

Career

Early days

Cadel Evans in Bonn, Germany 2005

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

Early successes included overall wins in the 2001 and 2004 editions of the Tour of Austria, fifth in the Deutschland Tour 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.

2006

Evans bettered his performance in 2006, finishing fourth in the Tour de France, 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 20 km 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 España. 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.

In 2006 and 2007 he was named Australian Cyclist of the Year.

2008

Evans was a favorite 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 minutes 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,^[3] Evans contested the 245 km mens road race at the Beijing Olympics, finishing 15th, 22 seconds behind Samuel Sánchez.^[4] 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.^[5][6] 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.

2009

Evans won the men's World Championship road race in Mendrisio, Switzerland on 27 September. The win came shortly after his third placing in the Vuelta a España, during which he wore the gold leader's jersey for a day, although his race was marred by mechanical failure in the way up the Sierra Nevada mountain finish. A combination of poor team support and poor form hampered his 2009 Tour de France campaign and he was only able to finish in 30th place, 45 minutes behind winner Alberto Contador. He also scored victories in the Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré and the Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali.

The season saw Evans become one of Australia's most successful cyclists with two podium places at the Tour de France. He has joined an elite group of cyclists who have all worn all three leaders jerseys; the Maglia Rosa leaders jersey at the Giro d'Italia (Tour of Italy) in 2002, the Yellow leaders jersey for 4 days in the 2008 Tour de France (Tour of France), and the Gold leaders Jersey in 2009 in the Vuelta a España (Tour of Spain).

There was much speculation at the end of the 2009 season of Evans looking for a new team to better support him at the 2010 Tour. After Evans became world champion he seemed to commit himself fully to helping teammate Philippe Gilbert. To many, this was evidence of a happier relationship between Evans and Silence-Lotto. However, it was then revealed that Evans was to depart the team, with the team citing his reason for leaving was "to look for new challenges".^[7]

A biography, "Cadel Evans: Close To Flying", co-authored by Rob Arnold and Evans, was published by Hardie Grant Books in November 2009.^[8]

2010

In 2010, Evans moved to the BMC Racing Team.^[9] He has since had success in the 2010 Flèche Wallonne and the held the Maglia Rosa after Stage 2 of the 2010 Giro d'Italia. Evans won stage seven of the Giro d'Italia with a dominating sprint from the front of a small group. Evans ended 5th overall, winning the Maglia Rosso Passione (Points Classification) and the Azzurri d'Italia Classification. Evans also held the yellow jersey for stage nine of the 2010 Tour de France while riding with a hairline fracture in his left elbow caused during a crash in the previous stage. He lost significant time to the leaders during stage nine, which lost him the yellow jersey and put him out of serious contention for overall victory. He ended the tour in 26th place, 50min 27sec behind Alberto Contador.

Career Highlights

Grand Tour General Classification results timeline

Grand Tour	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
Giro	14	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	5
Tour	-	-	-	8	4	2	2	30	26
Vuelta	-	-	60	-	-	4	-	3

References

External links

• Official website
• Cycling Federation rider profile
• Cyclingnews.com interview
• 2006 Tour de France Official Rider Profile
• Cadel Evans profile
• VeloNews.com interview: Evans regains maglia rosa, eight years later

Giro d'Italia winners of the points classification in the Giro d'Italia 1966 Gianni Motta  • 1967 Dino Zandegù  • 1968 Eddy Merckx  • 1969–70 Franco Bitossi  • 1971 Marino Basso  • 1972 Roger De Vlaeminck  • 1973 Eddy Merckx  • 1974–75 Roger De Vlaeminck  • 1976–1978 Francesco Moser  • 1979 Giuseppe Saronni  • 1980–1981 Giuseppe Saronni  • 1982 Francesco Moser  • 1983 Giuseppe Saronni  • 1984 Urs Freuler  • 1985 Johan Van der Velde  • 1986 Guido Bontempi  • 1987–1988 Johan Van der Velde  • 1989 Giovanni Fidanza  • 1990 Gianni Bugno  • 1991 Claudio Chiappucci  • 1992 Mario Cipollini  • 1993 Adriano Baffi  • 1994 Djamolidine Abdoujaparov  • 1995 Tony Rominger  • 1996 Fabrizio Guidi  • 1997 Mario Cipollini  • 1998 Mariano Piccoli  • 1999 Laurent Jalabert  • 2000 Dimitri Konyshev  • 2001 Massimo Strazzer  • 2002 Mario Cipollini  • 2003 Gilberto Simoni  • 2004 Alessandro Petacchi  • 2005–2006 Paolo Bettini  • 2007 Danilo Di Luca  • 2008 Daniele Bennati  • 2009 Danilo Di Luca  • 2010 Cadel Evans