Cadel Evans attacks again, but can't seem to get a break
Cadel Evans just can’t catch a break in this Tour de France, even when he tries to break away.
To the surprise of many, the two-time Tour runner-up went on a daring, potentially dangerous attack on the first climb up the Cat. 1 Port d’Envalira in the opening 23km of Saturday’s 176.5km eighth stage from Andorra to Saint-Girons.
But instead of riding away from his rivals and bouncing back into contention, all he caught was grief.
Hours after his efforts were foiled, a frustrated Evans didn’t check his emotions when he crossed the line with the GC favorites to remain stuck in 18th overall at 3:07 back.
"Ignorant members of the media say I never attack,” Evans fumed at the team bus after the stage. “You've got to take these opportunities when they come. Ah ... I just get so sick of being told: 'Why don't you go in an early breakaway? Why don't you do this? Why don't you do that?”
Evans didn’t stop there, criticizing his fellow escapees for not fully cooperating with the effort.
"Do you think anyone in the Tour de France would let me go in a breakaway?” he continued. “And then when I get into a break, like a couple of members of the media, they carry on like they're year-olds with a tantrum, 'err ... get out of the group, they are going to chase us.”
It’s easy to understand Evans’ growing frustration because he’s perhaps in the best form of his life, but this Tour so far doesn’t show it.
A poor team time trial performance in stage 4 all but torpedoed his chances against a dominant Astana team before he could even get out of the starting blocks.
On Friday, the Australian was one of the few riders to even dare to attack on beyond-category steeps at Arcalis, but he couldn’t break free of the Astana stranglehold.
Realizing that opportunities are few in this edition of the Tour, which features only three summit finishes, Evans decided to put his head down and try to catch the GC favorites off-guard as the race rolled out of Andorra.
Taking a page from other daring long-distance raids, Evans powered away on the Envalira.
“I saw an opportunity there with the climb, and after yesterday, there were not many Astana left in the front group,” Evans explained. “I haven’t got much to lose. You have to take these opportunities when they come when you’re a little outside of GC.”
To his wary rivals, however, the dangerous Evans isn’t far enough outside GC to let go.
He quickly found company from other stage hunters, but others in the break, such as George Hincapie and Fabian Cancellara, weren’t too happy to see GC threat Evans in the group – and told him so.
Cancellara was seen waving his arms at Evans, telling him that the break was doomed if he remained in the pack. Others asked him to sit up so the break would have a chance to succeed, but Evans bravely fought out.
Hincapie said efforts to drop Evans out of the group cost him later on the Cat. 1 Col d’Agnès, when he got dropped by a quartet of riders who eventually held on to win the stage.
“The problem was Cadel was there, so we spent a lot of energy trying to get rid of him,” Hincapie told reporters at the finish. “We finally got rid of him by attacking non-stop and then three guys came from behind and caught us before the feed zone. Those were three guys who basically were the strongest on the last climb because they didn’t burn any matches.”
Realizing that Evans was a GC threat, Astana turned the screws and the gap never got north of one minute, dooming the chances of the breakaway attempt. Evans eventually faded back to the main group and the breakaway ended up riding to the victory.
Astana team boss Johan Bruyneel said there was no way they were going to let Evans ride back into the race and they rode tempo up the day’s first climb to keep the Australian on the short leash.
“I was surprised to see Cadel Evans attack so early in the stage. I don't know what his purpose was because I still consider him one of the favorites,” Bruyneel said. “Envalira was a long climb. But if you look at the profile and see that at the top of Envalida there are 154km to the finish I really didn't understand. So we kept the team together and controlled that situation. It didn't do us a lot of damage. I think it did to him more damage than us. That's bike racing. You cannot predict what the strategy of the other is.”
Evans promises to look for new opportunities, but admits there might not be much favorable terrain until the next summit finish to Verbier in stage 15.
“It turned out to be a big waste of energy,” Evans concluded of his ill-fated breakout attempt.
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