Cadel Evans Never Let Cycling Defeat Him

Andy Schleck is riding away, off into the clouds towards the yellow jersey. He escaped 60 kilometers ago, alone, and he is about to finish his audacious solo move with a win atop the legendary Mt. Galibier. The 2011 Tour De France is his.

Or, rather, it would have been if not for the silent yeoman's work of Cadel Evans further down the mountain. While Schleck celebrated and popped champagne, Evans churned his way up the Galibier two minutes faster than Schleck, laying the groundwork for the first ever Tour De France victory by an Australian. Days later, Evans would slash-and-burn the field in the time trial and steal the yellow jersey off Schleck's back.

It's telling that the signature performance from Evans' Tour win wasn't a grandiose, flashy mountain attack, but a grinding chasedown. Evans retired earlier this month after a career full of struggles, near misses, and second place finishes. He earned some spectacular victories, but what made him so special and unique among elite cyclists was his stubborn resistance. It's one thing to make it as a cyclist, but it's a rarer, more difficult feat to not let the harsh solitude of the sport unmake you.

And the near misses Evans suffered were as painful as they come. In 2007, Evans lost the Tour De France by 23 seconds to Alberto Contador, the second-narrowest margin of all time. The next year, he came back as the favorite but lost by 58 seconds. Evans was 31, with four-straight top tens at the Tour, but a younger generation of riders led by Contador and Schleck were starting to overtake him. Evans had paid dues during Lance Armstrong's reign of terror only to come up against a new wave of stars.

The closer he got to winning a Grand Tour— the three-week tours of Italy, France, and Spain are considered Grand Tours— the more acidic his losses became. In 2009, he lost the Vuelta A España to Alejandro Valverde by 1:32, the exact amount of time he lost when he punctured his wheel right before a summit finish and a neutral service car fucked up the repair job. Evans was perpetually losing bigger races by smaller margins in crueler ways. Things were, in short, grim.

Such is the nature of cycling: almost everyone loses almost every race. When over 180 riders line up for a race, most everyone will end up disappointed. Even when Eddy Merckx had the best season in cycling history in 1971, he lost more than he won. To be a great professional cyclist, you have to make peace with losing. This is more straightforward for fringe riders, where any top-ten place is a coup. But for Cadel Evans, who was anointed Australia's cycling messiah in 2005 and was expected to deliver a Tour win, the near-wins were not enough; they began to eat away at him. Racing became a Sisyphean task.

Close losses like the ones Evans so regularly suffered have claimed careers. Heinrich Haussler had his heart broken at 2009's Milan - San Remo by Mark Cavendish, then also came in second at that year's Ronde Van Vlaanderen. He's now gone through three different teams, dropped down a division, and hasn't come close to a monument podium since. Andy Schleck finished second on the road in three consecutive Tour De Frances and he retired last year at 29. Late-career Schleck was a shell of himself, drinking his way out of more races than he finished. That Galibier escape was the last time he would win a bike race. He was 26.

But not Cadel. A week after he lost the Vuelta, a frustrated Evans won the 2009 World Championships in Switzerland with a forceful solo attack. As breakthroughs go, it was a shocking one. He had never won a one-day race before and went in as a lieutenant for teammate Simon Gerrans. The rainbow stripes granted to World Championship winners rejuvenated Evans and he finally started delivering wins. There was the mudstorm hellhole of a stage he won at the 2010 Giro D'Italia. There was his Tour win, where he became the oldest winner in the modern era. Last season, he held the Giro leader's jersey for a week and finished eighth. He unquestionably has more in the tank, but he's retiring on his terms.

His last World Tour race, last month's Tour Down Under, was a fitting epilogue to Evans' career. Teammate Rohan Dennis took off and won Stage 3, and then Evans protected him for the duration of the race, sacrificing his hopes of winning to power his teammate to victory. He would finish third behind Dennis and Richie Porte, Australian cycling's next stars.

Evans is leaving the sport healthier than he found it, which might be his most important legacy—especially in his home country. Ten years ago, Australians were scattered around the World Tour, somewhat successful, but not especially unified. Nobody was raising the sport's profile back home. Now, the country has its own (very successful) top-flight team, Orica-GreenEDGE and Dennis holds the world Hour Record. Not all the credit can go to Evans, but he was the central figure in Australia's rise as a cycling power. He was one of the strongest, most durable racers of the century: a man who refused to succumb to sports' heartbreaking and physically torturous nature, and in the process became a national cycling icon.