Cadel Evans

Cadel Lee Evans (born 14 February 1977) is an Australian former professional racing cyclist who competed professionally in both mountain biking and road bicycle racing.

Cadel Evans was born on 14 February 1977 at the Katherine District Hospital, Katherine, Northern Territory, Australia, to Helen (née Cocks), a bank manager, and Paul Evans, a council foreman.

He spent his early childhood in the small Aboriginal community of Barunga, 80 km east of Katherine.

At the age of seven, he was hit in the head by a horse, and spent seven days in an induced coma.

In 1986, his parents separated and he first moved with his mother to Armidale, New South Wales, and then to the Melbourne suburb of Eltham, Victoria, where his mother still lives.

Evans attended Newling Public School in Armidale, and Eltham High School in Melbourne.

Skateboarding was one of his teenage interests.

His father describes him as a good student, but otherwise just an ordinary kid who would leave his toys around; "Not in [my] wildest dreams" would he imagine that his son would become a top world athlete.

Evans started his international career in 1995 as a Scholarship-holder in the Australian Institute of Sport mountain bike (MTB) Program, under A.I.S. Cycling Program's MTB coach Damian Grundy, and up to 1998 under road coach Heiko Salzwedel.

While Evans was at the Australian Institute of Sport, physiological tests showed he possessed a rare combination – an unusually high lung volume and the capacity to absorb more oxygen from each breath than 99.9 per cent of the population.

This ability led to him becoming known as 'The Lung'.

Evans won bronze medals at the 1995 Junior world mountain bike championship and Junior world road time trial championship, and silver medals at the 1997 and 1999 under-23 world championships.

In 1997, he rode for the Diamondback MTB team, and then for the Volvo–Cannondale MTB team.

Early in his career, he was a champion mountain biker, winning the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup in 1998 and 1999 and placing seventh in the men's cross-country mountain bike race at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.

Evans is a four-time Olympian.

He won the cross-country event in the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup in both 1998 and 1999.

In 1998 Shayne Bannan was the under-23 road cycling coach based in Italy.

Cadel Evans had a breakthrough road cycling performance at the 1999 Tour of Tasmania, where commentator Phil Liggett famously proclaimed that Evans would win the Tour de France one day.

Evans turned to full-time road cycling in 2001, and gradually progressed through the ranks.

It was not until 2001, however, that Evans officially made the switch to road cycling and joined the team.

He spent one year with in 2001 and another year with in 2002 before two years with (2003–2004).

Other early successes included overall wins in the 2001 and 2004 editions of the Tour of Austria, 14th in the 2002 Giro d'Italia (he wore the general classification leader's pink jersey for one day), Commonwealth Games time trial champion in 2002 and a stage win of the 2002 Tour Down Under.

At Mapei, he was coached by Aldo Sassi, who helped him make the transition from mountain biker to grand tourer.

From the 2005 season he joined and came eighth in his first Tour de France, the first Australian in the top ten since Phil Anderson.

He finished fifth at the Deutschland Tour.

In 2006, Evans started the season by winning the mountains classification in the Tour Down Under.

Evans won the Tour de Romandie, beating Spanish riders Alberto Contador and Alejandro Valverde on the last stage, a 20 km time trial around Lausanne.

He finished fifth in the Tour de France but was promoted to fourth after the disqualification of apparent winner Floyd Landis due to a failed drug test.

He finished second in the Tour de France in 2007 and 2008.

He became the first Australian to win the UCI ProTour (2007) and the UCI Road World Championships in 2009.

After finishing outside the top twenty in 2009 and 2010, Evans became the first Australian rider to win the Tour de France in 2011, riding for the.

He took the race lead on the penultimate day, after completing a 42.5 km individual time trial some two-and-a-half minutes quicker than his closest rivals, Andy Schleck and Fränk Schleck.

At age 34, he was among the five oldest winners in the race's history.

He also made the podium in the 2009 Vuelta a España and the 2013 Giro d'Italia.

Both of these 2nd place finishes are in the top 10 of the closest Tours in history.

After Sassi's death from cancer in 2010, Evans continued cooperation with his protege Andrea Morelli.

A four-time Olympian, Evans is one of three non-Europeans – along with Greg LeMond and Egan Bernal – to have won the Tour de France, winning the race in 2011.

After winning the Tour de France in 2011, Evans dedicated the victory to the late coach.

Evans retired on 1 February 2015, after completing a race named in his honour.

In March 2017, Evans was back on a mountain bike and competing in the Masters category at the eight-day Cape Epic stage race in South Africa over 641 km. The race, held in a two-person team format saw Evans partner George Hincapie – his domestique at the 2011 Tour de France – and they won the category.