World champion stays aggressive to the end
BMC Racing’s Cadel Evans continued with his aggressive riding during stage twenty of the Giro d’Italia. With 3 kilometers left to race the World champion put in an attack on the the Passo del Tonale, and managed to pull back some hard-earned seconds on the top three spots in the overall.
“I was trying to close the gap toward fourth and third on GC and possibly get the stage win,” Evans said after the finish.
The Australian came up 16 seconds short of the stage win, with Johann Tschopp (Bbox-Bouygues Telecom) taking honors on the day. With a 12 second time bonus awarded for his second place finish, Evans has now brought himself within 51 seconds of third place overall Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas-Doimo) ahead of tomorrow’s 15 kilometer time trial.
“Tomorrow, the goal is the same as usual: to go from the start line to the finish line as fast as I can,” he added.
While Evans is a superior time trialist to Nibali, he will likely run out of road in this Giro d’Italia before making up enough time to step onto the final podium. Last year a crash in the final time trial nearly lost Russian Denis Menchov (Rabobank) the maglia rosa, so a place on the podium for the BMC Racing leader is still possible. Today’s attack wasn’t in vain though, as his effort was enough to secure his lead in the red points jersey competition.
“It guaranteed his victory in the points jersey,” Team president Jim Ochowicz added, “which is something he had in mind, as well as moving closer to a podium position.”
Evans is 50 seconds behind climber Michele Scarponi who currently sits in fourth place. The chances are far greater for him to overhaul the Androni Giocattoli rider tomorrow in Verona.