Evans wins Tour de France
Contador finishes fifth after "giving his best"
Australian Cadel Evans cruised down the Champs-Élysées for his first Tour de France win on Sunday after sealing victory over the Schleck brothers in Saturday's time trial, with Spain's double winner Alberto Contador finishing a disappointing fifth in the overall classification. But there was some triumph for Spain in the person of Samuel Sánchez who took the king of the mountain red polka-dot jersey for the race's best climber.
Evans, a former mountain biker, is the first Australian to win the Tour. His triumph in the 3,335-kilometer-long race was one of persistence, consistency and calculation rather than overwhelming superiority. "It's been 20 years since I watched my first Tour de France on TV and I said I'd like to win it. A lot of people didn't believe it," Evans said after crossing the finish line in Paris.
The race's final stage, ending in the Champs-Élysées in Paris, was won by Mark Cavendish in a mass sprint. That secured him the green jersey for the race's best sprinter, finishing ahead of Spain's José Joaquín Rojas.
Evans, who had already finished second in the Tour to Contador and Spain's Carlos Sastre, went one better when he stormed around the 42.5-kilometer time-trial course in Grenoble on Saturday, finishing second, only seven seconds behind the winner, Germany's Tony Martin. Contador came third in the time trial 1.06 minutes behind the winner after his exhausting heroic exertions on Friday on the road to Alpe d'Huez when he managed to take some time off the race leaders but not enough to make any difference to the overall result. Sánchez came a creditable seventh in the time trial.
With less than a minute separating yellow-jersey holder Andy Schleck from Evans in the penultimate stage of the race on Saturday, there was little doubt the Australian superior time-trialing would see him overhaul the gap. He eventually finished 1.34 minutes ahead of the Luxembourg rider, with Andy's brother Frank occupying the third place on the podium. Contador finished fifth, 3.57 minutes behind Evans, while Sánchez was sixth at 4.55 minutes.
Contador, the pre-race favorite, congratulated the Australian. "Cadel Evans deserves the Tour and is a worthy winner," the Spaniard said on Saturday. "His way of riding isn't spectacular, but he has shown himself to be very strong, he fought for stages, and did a great time trial today."
Contador's Tour seemed ill-fated from the start with a number of falls causing him to lose time early on and pick up niggling injuries. He came to France after his exertions in Italy in May that saw him pick up another Giro title. He also had the pending outcome of the International Cycling Union's appeal (UCI) appeal against his acquittal by the Spanish Cycling Federation on doping charges hanging over him.
"Nobody knows what I went through in this Tour and during the year," Contador said. "The start wasn't the best, but I continued, I dug in and gave my best. I'm happy with the season."
