Tour De France, Stage
20
Cadel Evans is all but certain to become Australia's first Tour de France winner after a
stunning time trial-victory in the suburbs of Grenoble.
Evans recorded a time of 55 minutes 40 seconds to take the yellow jersey
from Andy Schleck before Sunday's largely ceremonial final stage in Paris. Germany's Tony Martin won the
time-trial from Evans, who moved 1:34 ahead of Schleck in the overall
standings. Schleck began the day with a
53-second lead in the general classification.
Evans (right) with Green Jersey winner Mark Cavendish |
So in the year that
Cycling seems to have entered the British Sporting consciousness big style
thanks to the Manx Missile’s Green Jersey win, I’ve not plumped for one of
Cavendish’s wins but for the penultimate stage in what was a remarkably close
Tour.
To recap, the
defending champion, Alberto Contador was racing under the cloud of a doping
ban. This was rendered meaningless early
on when Contador suffered a series of setbacks that put him all but out of the
tour. The surprise package of the tour
was the French rider Thomas Voeckler who stayed in Yellow until Andy Scleck eventually
overhauled him on stage 19 – which finished on the slopes of the iconic Alpe
d’Huez. Shleck had missed out on yellow
the previous day by 15 seconds. Neither
Andy Schleck, nor his brother Frank, were renowned time trialists though, which
meant that Cadel Evans, who had performed admirably to stay with the leading
group throughout the mountain stages, was still within touching distance 57
seconds behind Andy Shleck.
The stage was set
for an almighty tussle. What unfolded
was the most dramatic sporting spectacle of the year as Cadel Evans tore into
the course, as both of the Shleck brothers dramatically collapsed. By the first check point at 15 kilometres
Evans had taken a huge chunk out of that 57 second lead, with Andy Shleck
trailing (on this stage) by 36 seconds, by not long afterwards Evans had ridden
himself into yellow.
Stage 20 was won by
Tony Martin, but only finishing 7 seconds behind was Evans. Andy Shleck had though conceded a total of 2
minutes and 31 seconds to Cadel Evans on this stage – more than enough for
Evans to take Yellow and to hold it through Stage 21’s lap of honour through Paris. This was one of the most remarkable
turnaround’s this race had ever seen, in what proved to be the closest race for
many years.
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