Crikey Cadel!
“Start as fast as possible, finish as fast as possible, and hope it’s fast enough.” That’s how Cadel Evans saw the task ahead of him coming into last night’s individual time trial of the Tour de France. Evans had 57 seconds to make up on the race leader Andy Schleck and there were anxious moments waiting up to see if he could do it.
As we probably all know, Evans rode out of his skin and did exactly what he said he would do. Such a proud time to be an Aussie! What a great achievement, surely one of our country’s greatest individual sporting achievements.
It has been inspirational to watch, sometimes with bleary eyes late into the night, the guts and determination that Evans has shown on this tour. Incredible rides over the final stages where he chased both Schleck and Alberto Contador in the Alps with very little help to keep himself in the race.
So, after 3 weeks and 3400km of racing, an Aussie will ride into Paris with the yellow jersey and win the Tour de France. Who can believe it! As a banner near the top of the Alp d’Huez said ‘Crikey Cadel’. I wonder how the French would translate that!
