A bruised and sore Cadel Evans took the yellow jersey at the Tour de France after Leonardo Piepoli of Italy won a punishing climb through the Pyrenees to capture the 10th stage on Monday.
Evans, the 31-year-old Silence Lotto leader and one of the favorites, swiped the race lead from Kim Kirchen and has a one-second lead over Frank Schleck.
The performance was even more striking because Evans took the lead a day after crashing badly in Sunday’s stage, leaving the Australian with cuts and bruises and causing him to momentarily fear that his Tour might be over.
PHOTO: AFP
“Yesterday, I was at what’s for me been my Tour low. And today, up until this point in the Tour, it’s been my Tour high,” Evans said. “It’s a bit an emotional rollercoaster to say the least.”
Evans’ eyes welled up with tears as he donned the yellow jersey on a podium at a post-race ceremony. It was the first time he has ever held the Tour lead, having finished second behind Alberto Contador of Spain last year.
“I still can’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it now and I couldn’t believe it then on the podium,” he said.
Evans took the lead into the first of two rest days yesterday.
The three-week race finishes in Paris on July 27 — and he says he wants to try to stay in yellow until then.
Evans only rarely attacked the other pre-race favorites who distanced themselves from the main pack in the 156-km stage from Pau to Hautacam. The stage featured the passes of Tourmalet and Hautacam — climbs so hard they are beyond classification.
Piepoli finished a split second ahead of his Saunier Duval teammate, Juan Jose Cobo Acebo of Spain. Schleck was third, 28 seconds back, and Evans and several other title threats trailed 2 minutes, 17 seconds behind.
Evans came into the stage six seconds behind Kirchen, who struggled up the Hautacam and finished 4:19 off Piepolo’s pace — falling to seventh overall and ending his four-day run in yellow.
Christian Vande Velde, the Garmin-Chipotle team leader who kept in Evans’ bunch, held on to third — 38 seconds back. Russia’s Denis Menchov — the man who Evans has said he fears most — also kept up with the Australian and is 57 seconds back in fifth. Carlos Sastre is sixth, 1:28 back.
The day’s biggest loser was Alejandro Valverde, the Spanish national champion seen as a potential title threat.
He couldn’t keep up with his main rivals up the first climb up Tourmalet, and continued to lose time. He finished 5:52 behind Piepoli and now trails Evans by 4:41.
“It’s finished for the podium,” Caisse d’Epargne sporting director Eusebio Unzue said of Valverde’s chances of a top-three finish.
History may be playing in Evans’ favor. In the three Tour stages to finish at the Hautacam, the rider who emerged from the stage up its punishing 14.4km ascent in yellow kept the shirt all the way to the finish in Paris — Miguel Indurain in 1994, Bjarne Riis in 1996, and Lance Armstrong in 2000.
“Like the others who took the yellow jersey on the Hautacam, I hope I can continue in it,” Evans said.
Remy di Gregorio, a 22-year-old Frenchman who crashed out of his first Tour last year with a broken elbow, led the pack over the 17.7km Tourmalet pass — the longer of the stage’s two massive climbs.
The group of favorites ultimately overtook di Gregorio early in the climb up the Hautacam, with just under 12km to go — when the leaders also put on a gap on promising Andy Schleck, Frank’s younger brother and Team CSC teammate.
Mark Cavendish of Britain, who won the fifth and eighth stages, and Danny Pate of the US crashed early in the stage. They got back on their bikes, and Cavendish was treated by the race doctor for an injury to his left shoulder.
Yury Trofimov of Russia quit the race after catching a cold and feeling fatigue, Bouygues Telecom sporting director Didier Rous said. The pack now includes 169 riders, 11 fewer than at the start of the race.
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