Evans in pole position as Tour heads for the south

CYCLING:THERE HAS been unprecedented carnage among the Tour de France favourites, who now total three, or perhaps two and a half, depending on the state of Alberto Contador's wounded knee. If he is indeed pedalling on one leg, an apt image for a race that has lost so many stars and includes so many pedalling wounded, it will mean the outcome of the 2011 Tour depends on how Andy Schleck and Cadel Evans react in the coming days.

Schleck and Evans have one thing in common which explains why they are unscathed while Bradley Wiggins, Jurgen van den Broeck, Alexandr Vinokourov and Robert Gesink are at home or, in Gesink’s case, might as well be. Their respective teams, Leopard-Trek and BMC, include the best “bodyguards” in the business.

The French term refers to cyclists who have the speed and experience to keep their leaders at the head of the bunch at critical moments: Fabian Cancellara for Schleck, the veteran George Hincapie for BMC.

Contador, for one, has no comparable team-mate to protect him. Additionally, Evans has gained in confidence this year, said his BMC manager, Jim Ochowicz.

“We saw a difference in his ability to handle the stress of the race last year. And he has improved on that again this year.”

The 34-year-old Australian has enjoyed the best opening week and will be in pole position when the Tour heads south tomorrow.

He grabbed three seconds on Schleck at Mont des Alouettes on day one and eight more at Mur-de-Bretagne, where he got the psychological boost of a stage win. On Saturday, when the race needed to be controlled running into the Massif Central, it was his BMC team who took over the job. He has 11 seconds on Schleck and 1 minute 41 seconds on Contador.

Both Evans and his young directeur sportif, John Lelangue, have a point to prove. Evans had disastrous Tours in 2009 and 2010, having come close in both the previous years. Last year he was wearing the yellow jersey when he crashed and broke his elbow, reducing his challenge to a battle for survival. As for Lelangue, his last true chance of winning the Tour was in 2006, when he guided Floyd Landis to a victory which proved ephemeral: the American tested positive for testosterone a few days afterwards.

“Since October, Cadel and I have spoken more with each other than with our wives,” Lelangue said. “We’ve been only thinking about the Tour.”

The critical difference in Evans this year, believes his manager, is that he has raced less and trained more. But in his few outings he has taken victory in two major stage races, Tirreno-Adriatico and the Tour of Romandie, and finished second to Wiggins in the Criterium du Dauphine.

Even before Contador’s knee problem emerged, Lelangue was confident that the Spaniard would not win the Tour. “Our race was never based on Contador, but I don’t think he will be on the podium. Even if he didn’t go too far into his reserves at the Giro d’Italia, he has had a difficult three months. He raced the Giro, then had to cram in looking at the Tour route, training for the team time trial, riding his national championships, all into three weeks. He’s been here, thereand everywhere.

That’s not the best preparation in my book.” The 2011 race is looking like that of 1996. That race was a “Tour of transition” with a Spanish star (Miguel Indurain) who proved to be past his sell-by date, and a desperately hectic opening week with numerous crashes, unusually high stress levels, and an unexpectedly high level of fatigue among the riders. There was no long time trial or team time trial to give structure to the race, like this year.

That Tour did not take shape until the race hit the Col de la Madeleine on the opening stage in the Alps, when there was a massive sort-out. Something similar should happen on Thursday when the Tour enters the Pyrenees. On the Madeleine in 1996, everything that had seemed clear in the previous stages was rendered irrelevant in the space of a few kilometres. Something similar may happen in 48 hours on the Col du Hourquette d’Ancizan or the Col du Tourmalet.