Evans says rainbow won’t change Tour plans

by Ben Atkins at 5:27 PM EST

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Categories: Pro Cycling, Tour de France, World Championships

Despite being a two-time runner-up at the Tour de France, and now the champion of the World, Cadel Evans is not sure how much impact he has made in a maistream Australian media more familiar with sports like cricket and rugby.

"You have to do something special in cycling to get on the nightly news," said Evans in an interview with sporza.be. "Breaking through and winning it is a bit of unchartered territory for cycling fans (in Australia), so they're taking it and running with it."

Despite his success in the World Championships and the jersey that goes with it, Evans will continue to concentrate on his goal of winning the Tour de France; something seldom seen from a rainbow jersey wearer since the days of Greg Lemond. He also denied that his success meant that he should switch his focus to other types of event.

"Whether I won on Sunday or not, it doesn't change my mentality or work ethic towards my job,” he said. "It's actually my first victory in a one-day race that's not a time trial, so I probably should stick to my stage races - that is my day job!"

As a perennial runner-up in events like the Tour de France, and someone not credited with attacking too often, Evans has been irritated by comments that he won on Sunday because he finally dared to attack.

"I don't ride that many one-day races, so I don't get much of an opportunity to excel at them,” he said. “I'm always concentrated on training for the Tour. And it's not like I haven't attacked in the finals of of big one-day races before, like [the cote de] Saint Nicolas in Liege-Bastogne-Liege or the Mur de Huy [at the finish of Fleche Wallonne], or being in the final of [the Giro di] Lombardia. This was one attack that really came off."

Despite his disastrous 2009 race, Evans still remains Australia’s best chance of taking the Tour’s yellow jersey. Despite the weight of the rainbow jersey, he should still be one of the riders to watch when the race starts in Rotterdam next July. "I've been working to win the world champs for 16 years now and for it to happen so quickly...” he joked. “It's just starting to sink in,"

"But my goals will remain the same,” he confirmed. “I'm still working hard to finish the season off as best I can, I try to go to bed early, do my training – my mentality and work ethic is exactly the same."

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