I’m conflicted. Every fibre of my being wants to see Australia’s Cadel Evans peg back the three minutes he needs to stand in yellow on the podium in Paris but I know that it’s incredibly unlikely.
Being a few seconds outside the time of the leaders is one thing, but being 2:59 down from names like Armstrong and Contodor makes the task almost impossible. Cadel is a great climber but we’ve never seen any evidence that he is good enough to put three minutes or more into the other climbers that stand between him and the yellow jersey.
The wheels came off Cadel’s campaign to win the 2009 Tour de France in the team time trial where his team was well and truly outclassed by the teams of the other favourites.
Thankfully Cadel hasn’t given up on his hopes of winning and if there’s an opportunity to do something spectacular, he’s still in the right frame of mind to take advantage of whatever situation might arise.
I’ve never been in this position at the Tour de France ahead of the mountains stages, so we’ll see what happens, but I’m feeling good. The Tour is not over for me yet.
So to the question, can Cadel Evans still win the 2009 Tour de France, I’d have to answer it’s not a big possiblity, but there’s still a flickering flame of hope, and I’ll be cheering him on whatever position he’s in when the peleton reaches the streets of Paris.
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It really goes to show the importance of a good team to back you up and get you into a good position to challenge. A telling thing was that he had to do a lot of the work himself in the team time trial in the strong winds, while the other teams sheilded their top riders.