Mcewen Affirms Tour Contention
The Sunday Age
Sunday January 27, 2008
CADEL Evans should be viewed as a contender, rather than a favourite, to win this year's Tour de France, in the mind of his Silence-Lotto teammate and compatriot Robbie McEwen.
In Adelaide riding in the Tour Down Under that finishes today, McEwen also said he would understand if Evans left their Belgian ProTour team at the end of this season in order to best position himself to take out the prized maillot jaune. "I think you can only say he'll definitely be one of the contenders," McEwen told The Age of Evans' chances to improve on his second placing in the Tour this July. "You'd have to put him somewhere between first and sixth. But it's much easier to tell in the lead-up because there's a couple of races before the Tour and you get a really good idea of who's going well and who's not."McEwen said Evans probably had another couple of goes to be in the top finishers: "Maybe three, maybe four. You don't know."Evans, 31 next month, is contracted to Silence-Lotto for 2008, but after a Belgian newspaper wrongly reported that he had re-signed until the end of 2010, the Australian last week raised the possibility of joining another team. In Adelaide for a dinner celebrating the 10th year of the Tour Down Under, Evans said he had met Silence-Lotto directors yesterday afternoon and that "issues are being resolved". But he is still only planning to sign a proposal rather than a new contract. "Normally I'd continue...but at this stage I'm just worrying about doing a good Tour and if I do that, well, I won't have any problems finding a contract."Evans was believed to be unhappy with Silence-Lotto's decision not to re-sign Chris Horner and Josep Jufre.
© 2008 The Sunday Age
