Former two-time mountain bike World Cup champion Cadel Evans completed his remarkable journey from off-road riding to skinny tyres with victory in the Tour de France on Sunday, while Jean-Christophe Péraud and Tom Danielson also featured in the top 10.
- Former two-time mountain bike World Cup champion Cadel Evans wins the Tour de France
Evans started life on knobbly tyres, winning the Australian National Championships in 1997 before topping the overall World Cup podium in successive years in 1998 and 1999.
“Cadel can one day win the Tour de France,” said Damien Grundy, the Australian’s coach as a junior, in 2001, when Evans switched focus to the road, winning the Tour of Austria in his debut season.
And, after twice finishing second, Grundy’s prediction range true when 2009 world champion Evans rolled into Paris in the yellow jersey having leapfrogged brothers Andy and Frank Schleck with a second place finish in the penultimate stage’s 42.5km individual time trial.
The 34-year-old Evans becomes the oldest Tour champion in 88 years and the first man from the southern hemisphere to win cycling’s most prestigious race – but the BMC Racing rider was not the only former mountain biker fighting it out at the top of the general classification after three weeks and more than 2,000 miles of racing.
American Danielson, riding for Garmin-Cervelo, finished ninth, with Péraud once place below – just two years after winning cross-country silver at the Beijing Olympic Games.
“I just went for it. I’m 32, I have done everything in mountain bike riding and I have had many successes. The road is a new challenge, ” said Péraud in 2009, having signed for Omega Pharma-Lotto after initially rejecting a contract from Bbox because they restricted the Frenchman from riding in any mountain bike races.
In fact, having switched to Ag2r La Mondiale for the current season, Péraud finished 37th at this year’s Dalby Forest leg of the World Cup series, before abandoning in Offenburg.
But the Tour de France was Péraud’s sole goal for 2011 and the 34-year-old finished sixth in the time trial to leapfrog compatriot Pierre Rolland, who won the white jersey for best young rider, and seal a top 10 spot at the first attempt.
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