Tour de France is too tough for Evans

THE Canberra-raised Michael Rogers has joined cycling veteran Stuart O'Grady in declaring Cadel Evans cannot win the Tour de France.

"It's a big ask physically of Cadel to win -- realistically he just hasn't got the men around him," Rogers told The Weekend Australian from his base at Varese in northern Italy before leaving for Monte Carlo and today's demanding 15km time trial.
"I simply can't see him being up there fighting for the yellow jersey at the end of three tough weeks of racing.
"There's just too many other factors that will be working against him. You have to factor in Lance Armstrong's return to the Tour, his Astana teammates Alberto Contador and Levi Leipheimer, and last year's winner Carlos Sastre.
"Then just for good measure, the race organisers have pencilled in Mt Ventoux, a bugger of a climb at the best of times, on the second-last day.
"Ventoux is just relentless.
I don't think GC (general classification) will be decided until the second-last day."
Rogers, a former top-10 finisher and one of Columbia-HTC's leading contenders for the overall classification, says Evans lacks the condition and team strength required to stand on the top step of the podium in Paris.
"For sure he's strong, but I don't think he has the condition to win the race," Rogers told ABC Radio yesterday.
"His team is probably his weakest point. He just hasn't got the background (support) a team like Astana has with Contador, Armstrong and Leipheimer. They're obviously going to throw everything they've got at him."
O'Grady, who lines up for his 13th start in the Tour with Saxo Bank, said Evans "had shown all his cards at the Dauphine Libere, where he again finished second.
"Only the team with the strongest riders will figure in the overall in what is shaping as a demanding Tour from kilometre zero to 3500," O'Grady said.
Evans's chances had a major setback just days before the start when Silence Lotto teammate Thomas Dekker -- expected to help the Victorian in the high mountains -- was ruled out after testing positive for the banned blood-booster EPO after a retrospective test from 2007.
Rogers, who will be joined on the start line by Bathurst's Mark Renshaw, missed last year's race due to illness, and crashed out of the 2007 edition.
He says missing out on the possibility of wearing the yellow jersey because of the crash will provide additional inspiration when he rolls down the start ramp of today's time trial.
"To be so close to living your boyhood dream, and having that taken away from you relatively fast is a big blow mentally," the triple world time trial champion said.
"But it makes me more hungry for success this year."
Renshaw's role for the team will be as lead-out man in the bunch sprints for Britain's Mark Cavendish, the winner of four stages last year. "I'm going to the Tour to work for Cav," he said. "I knew that when I signed from Credit Agricole last year.
"I thought we worked well together at the Giro."
While Armstrong's Spanish teammate Alberto Contador, the 2007 winner, is firm favourite to take his second title from the comeback rider and fellow American Leipheimer, the Texan is not so sure.
"You have to maintain morale, maintain a cohesive group in the race," Armstrong said. "Physically I'm prepared. I know what's required to be at the front or to win.
"There can't be a divide within the team -- if there is, then the likes of a Sastre, (Denis) Menchov, the Schleck brothers (Frank and Andy) or a Cadel Evans will take advantage."

Mark Cavendish wins second stage, Fabian Cancellara holds yellow

BRITON Mark Cavendish of the Colombia team won the second stage of the Tour de France last night, a 187km ride from Monaco to Brignoles, as stage one winner Fabian Cancellara of Saxo Bank retained the yellow jersey.

Team Columbia-High Road's Mark Cavendish beats Garmin-Slipstream's Tyler Farrar to the line. Picture:

Tour de France stage two

Briton Mark Cavendish of Team Colombia-htc wins the 187km second stage of the Tour de France as...

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The 24-year-old Cavendish, who won four stages of last year's edition, came through in a sprint finish after his team pushed to the front 75km from the line.
In sweltering conditions, Cavendish edged out American Tyler Farrar and Frenchman Romain Feillu but not before a fall split the peleton going into a curve 750 metres out.
The bunch finish gave all riders the winner's time meaning no change to the overall standings and Spaniard Alberto Contador still 19 seconds behind Cancellara.
Australian Cadel Evans remains fifth, 23 seconds down, and American seven-time champion Lance Armstrong tenth at 40sec.

Cancellara takes first stage of Tour de France

Switzerland's Olympic time-trial champion Fabian Cancellara has won the first stage of the Tour de France in a time of 19 minutes 32.14 seconds to claim the yellow jersey.

The 28-year-old showed his class with an impressive performance on the twisting and challenging 15.5km hilly course around the tiny Principality to claim his fourth stage victory on the Tour and was strong on the climb.

Outstanding on the descent, current Tour of Switzerland champion Cancellara wiped 19 seconds off the previous fastest time set by Bradley Wiggins, who eventually finished third with Astana's Alberto Contador second.

"I am quite proud, I put in the maximum possible effort," said the Swiss rider whose Saxo Bank team will now defend the yellow jersey at least until the next big rendezvous, the team time trial over 39km held on the fourth stage.

"I was one of the favourites to win here before the race and I knew if I got things right it would be very difficult for my rivals to beat me.

"That was special motivation.

"I knew to take it easy on the climb, to avoid too much lactic acid in the legs, and then go hard on the flat. It really paid off.

"To be back in the yellow jersey again is a great achievement both for me and my team, I am proud of it.

"Now everyone now knows Cancellara is back and he is stronger.

"We will now defend the jersey until the team time trial."

The new yellow jersey holder also revealed he had been battling depression in April this year.

"I had a few problems in April, things weren't going my way, but it makes me even prouder to know that I am strong in the head too to come back from that," said Cancellara.

The Swiss star also paid tribute to his team's mechanics, but revealed he had personally paid great attention to his bike.

"I take my hat off to the mechanics, they did a great job," he said.

"But I checked every millimetre, every detail of that bike as I knew the small things would make the difference out here."

Having held the yellow jersey for a week in 2007 when he won the London prologue and then the stage three, Cancellara said he knew it was a good omen when he was given the same No.33 to wear.

And Cancellara backed compatriot Roger Federer to win the final of Wimbledon against Andy Roddick of the United States.

"We might be from a small country, but we have talented sportsmen," he said with a grin.

Seven-times Tour champion Lance Armstrong, who is back after nearly four years in retirement, showed he still has the potential to worry the leaders as he finished 10th in a time of 20min 12sec - 40 seconds behind the winner.

Armstrong's Astana team-mate Contador, the 2007 Tour winner, was second and 18 seconds behind the winner to claim the polka-dot jersey while defending champion Carlos Sastre finished one minute and eight seconds off the pace.

Germany's Andreas Kloeden finished fourth in a time of 19 minutes 54 seconds, 22 seconds off the winner's pace, while Australia's Cadel Evans claimed fifth after finishing just a second off the German.

Cadel Evans's Tour de France teammate has been dumped over drugs

AUSTRALIAN cycling star Cadel Evans has been caught up in a drugs scandal before the Tour de France has even started.

His Belgian team, Silence-Lotto, dumped Dutch rider Thomas Dekker after an old sample, re-tested for the banned blood-booster EPO, came up positive.

Dekker was recruited to be one of Evans' key support riders in the mountains, where the Tour is usually won and lost.

Evans, who arrived in Monaco on Wednesday, was not immediately available for comment but team boss Marc Sergeant expressed deep disappointment.

Meanwhile, another top Australian rider, Allan Davis, waits to see whether the French arm of the international sports arbitration court allows Quickstep star Tom Boonen - who has twice tested positive to cocaine - to start the race tomorrow.

If so, Davis will miss out.

Because Boonen's positives, in April last year and May this year, were out of competition he cannot be banned as a drugs cheat, but the Tour organisers want him out because a rider immersed in a drugs culture is clearly bad for the image of the race and the sport.

Dekker's positive relates to a test done in December 2007, and re-examined recently because officials were suspected that he might have been involved in blood manipulation since then.

He was riding for Rabobank then, but the affair has landed in Silence-Lotto's lap now _ and Evans's.

Cycling'scontrolling body, the UCI, has said the Tour, which starts in Monaco on Saturday, will be the most rigorously policed sporting event ever, with 520 tests to be carried out over the three weeks _ or about 26 for each of the 20 stages.

UCI president Pat McQuaid says he is "neither an optimist or a pessismist" that this might finally be the year there are no scandals.

So far, with Dekker out, Spanish star Alejandro Valverde also dropped by his team, Caisse d'Arpargne, because he is uner a ban in Italy, where the Tour visits, and the Boonen case, the event is already on uneasy ground.