Cadel not in Tour team?!

Dazzle

What logical reason is there for T-Mobile to NOT have Cadel Evans in their Tour team??? What a talent he is and it seems that he is peeking just at the right time to help Ullrich significantly (and perhaps do something himself). With Vino gone I thought they would be desperate to have Evans in there. I've been following Cadels progress over the last few years and was really looking forward to his Tour this year. Doesn't he deserve to be there? I can't understand why he's 'on the bench'. Would appreciate others comments on this one.

mitosis

I agree. Very disappointing. When did they announce the team?

hemplands

They haven't officially the team is announced on Friday 13.00 CET.

This came about from the website http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php...un04/jun23news2

patch70

It seems bizarre. I think also that he'd be a big help for Jan as well as this being good preparation for him to aim at a podium finish for future tours.

mitosis

Did see on cyclingnews that he finished down in the gc in tour de sud and he didn't finish highly in the climbers classification of the same race.

Still think he'd be a huge help for Ullrich in the mountains.

patch70

This was just after he'd won the Tour of Austria so there was probably a few recovery days in the Route du Sud for him.

Dazzle

Only reason for this was the 32 minute advantage that half the pelaton got on the first (flat) stage (if I remember rightly). Evans actually finished about 5th in the next group of riders and was with the strongest riders on every mountain stage

mitosis

Thanks for that information - they must be crazy leaving him out of the run-on team.

I've got nothing but a hunch here - but is there any tension between Evans and other team members? specifically Ullrich?

Dazzle

I wonder about that also. Evan's seems such a humble guy that I cant imagine what it could be. One crazy thought that crossed my mind was that maybe T-mobile see Evan's as a possible challenge to the overall GC riders including Ullrich. Maybe they want to make sure it's only Ullrich that will be leading this team. (This doesn't really make any sense though, as Vino was supposed to be part of the team before his accident). Who knows?

mitosis

Yeah, I thought the same, but I thought it might have been an optimistic view of Evans's potential by me. Cadel may do to Ullrich what Ullrich did to Riis a few years ago.

patch70

Maybe Vino confirmed his loyalty to Ullrich in the Sydney Olympic road race when he helped Ullrich win the gold medal (by working as a Deutsch Telekom team-mate rather than a Kazakh opponent)?

I'd say Cadel will be looking for a new team for '05.

dorkpants

how's this for a load of crap excuse....?



he had a couple of crashes last year, being unfortunate enough to repeatedly break his collarbone.... therefore (or so the logic goes) he is more prone to crash than other riders, and when doing so is at more risk than other riders of hurting himself...... so he's better off not racing.... GIMME A BREAK!~

he's come into some of the best form of his career, and T-Mobile give him some shit reason for his exclusion. what a joke!
and healed bones are usually stronger than unbroken ones!!

Dazzle

I saw that today...and I thought the same. Just a sure sign that Evan's needs to get out of T-Mobile and go somewhere where he is treated with the respect and professionalism that he deserves. I think he's a future Tour winner...if only someone will treat him like one.

Trev_S

This is the biggest and most important race of the year, you don't hold back all your eggs go into the basket.
Besides, any one of the team (touch wood) could fall in the first week.
It's a pretty lame reason.
Surely they could have come up with a better reason such as: We would like to keep him fresh for the vuelta.
At least that would make a little more sense.