After two illness-plagued seasons, Cadel Evans (BMC) proved that he is back to his best when he dropped key rivals Richie Porte (Sky) and Simon Gerrans (Orica-GreenEDGE) on the Corkscrew climb to win the third stage of the Tour Down Under in solo style. Putting 15 seconds into his nearest chasers and picking up 10 bonus seconds, the BMC leader now finds himself in the leader's jersey at the halfway mark, with Gerrans trailing him by 12 seconds.

 

When CyclingQuotes spoke to Australian national coach Bradley McGee at the 2013 World Championships in Florence, he regretted the fact that Cadel Evans had crashed out of the race. The leader of the national team claimed that the 2011 Tour champion had been on fire and had looked like the old Cadel Evans again.

 

Having already given an indication that McGee was right in his assessment when he finished second at his national championships a few weeks ago, Evans underlined his return to his top level in today's third stage of the Tour Down Under. Marked out as one of two decisive stages for the GC, the stage offered Evans a chance to gain time on overall leader and race favourite Simon Gerrans (Orica-GreenEDGE), with the steep Corkscrew climb coming just 7,4km from the finish.

 

At the bottom of the climb, he showed his intentions when he asked his strong BMC team to set a fierce pace and the main group was quickly reduced to just 20 riders. This was when Evans took things into his own hands, with Richie Porte (Sky) being the only one able to match his fierce acceleration.

 

In a dress rehearsal for the 2014 Giro d'Italia where the two Australian grand tour stars are again expected to test each other, the duo put time into their chasers as they battled it out on the steep slopes. However, it quickly became apparent that Evans was the strongest rider in the race and he left the Sky leader behind him to crest the summit as the lone leader.

 

Porte was joined by Gerrans before the top and the duo combined forces as they tried to reel in their veteran compatriot. Putting his mountain bike skills to good use, Evans was the best descender though and he actually extended his advantage on the fast downhill run to the line.

 

Gerrans and Porte were both picked up by an 11-rider chase group that even contained two of Evans' BMC teammates, Brent Bookwalter and Ben Hermans, but there was no way that they were going to catch the 2011 Tour champion. Going hard all the way to the line to maximize his time gains, Evans took an emphatic solo win and put 15 seconds into his nearest chasers.

 

In the sprint for 2nd, Gerrans missed out on bonus seconds as he could only manage 5th on the stage. Instead, it was Nathan Haas who took over the captaincy role on Garmin-Sharp from Rohan Dennis when he beat yesterday's winner Diego Ulissi (Lampre-Merida) in the sprint, with the duo both taking bonus seconds on the line.

 

With the win, Evans now enjoys a healthy 12-second lead over Gerrans on GC, with Ulissi sitting in 3rd at 15 seconds. Tomorrow's stage to Victor's Harbor should see the sprinters come to the fore for the first time and Evans now only faces one big test before he can be crowned winner of the 2014 Santos Tour Down Under: Saturday's queen stage to the top of the Willunga Hill.

 

A crucial stage

The 145km stage 3 of the Tour Down Under was always billed as a decisive one for the overall standings in the opening WorldTour race of the season. After a hard start where the riders climbed out of Adelaide from the start in the suburb of Norwood, the riders headed out on flat terrain in the Adelaide hills for most of the stage. Descending back into Adelaide, however, they faced a tough challenge near the end of the stage with the 2,4km climb of Corkscrew road and its 9,0% average gradient offering the only KOM points of the day just 7,4km from the finish. From the top, only a fast descent to the line in Campbelltown remained, with a big showdown expected to unfold on the climb.

 

The stage started without the presence of Lampre-Merida lieutenant Rafael Valls who had been in splendid condition at the start of the race. In a crash near the end of yesterday's stage into Stirling, the Spaniard had been left with a broken humerous bone in the arm and instead of starting the stage he headed to SportsMed SA for surgery to pin the break.

 

Meyer attacks from the gun

As it has been the case in all stages so far, Drapac were very keen to be represented in the day's early break and as soon as the flag was dropped, Travis Meyer launched the first attack. He was quickly joined by Jerome Cousin (Europcar) and a few moments later Andriy Grivko (Astana) also made it across.

 

Surprisingly, there was no big fight to get into the early break, and the trio was allowed to build up a gap that had already reached more than 2 minutes after 5km of racing. At this point, veteran Jens Voigt (Trek) had set off in pursuit and after a short chase, the junction was made to form a front quartet.

 

Goss does the hard work

The four riders started to work together but with Grivko sitting just 21 seconds off the overall lead of Gerrans, there was never any chance that the peloton would let things get out of control. The gap reached a maximum of 2.40 already after 14km and then Orica-GreenEDGE decided to put Matt Goss on the front, allowing Luke Durbridge to have an easier day after two days of hard working.

 

Goss kept the gap stable between the 2- and 3-minute marks for most of the stage that had a rather uneventful first part. The only excitement happened at the two intermediate sprints, with Meyer beating Grivko and Cousin at the first one. At the second one, the order of Meyer and Grivko was reversed while Cousin was again the third rider to cross the line.

 

The peloton starts the chase

When the peloton passed through the feed zone, they decided that it was time to start the chase in earnest, with Goss being joined by Michael Matthews in his work on the front. For the first time, the gap dropped below the 2-minute mark which prompted a reaction from the escapees.

 

The increased pace was too much for Cousin who fell off the pace and was quickly swallowed up by the peloton. The remaining trio managed to stretch their lead back out to 2.20 but when they passed the 30km to go banner, things got serious in the peloton.

 

Crashes take down several riders

For a short climb like Corkscrew, positioning is key and the fierce battle for position quickly brought the gap down. Unfortunately, it also caused a number of crashes, with Bradley Linfield (UniSA) and Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier (FDJ) being two of the riders to hit the deck.

 

With 20km to go, the gap was down to just 30 seconds as Sky and Omega Pharma-Quick Step now replaced Orica-GreenEDGE on the front. Meyer was the first to give up and with 14km to go, it was all over for Grivko and Voigt as well.

 

Sky takes control

Sky took control of the peloton to position Porte and Geraint Thomas well for the climb but they were passed by the Lotto Belisol and Giant-Shimano teams who worked to set up Adam Hansen and Simon Geschke respectively. When they hit the climb, however, it was all BMC as the American team tried to make the race hard enough to suit their captain Evans.

 

Evans upped the pace himself a little further up the climb, with Porte being the only rider able to keep up with him. A little later, the Sky rider also lost contact and was joined by Gerrans from behind while Evans soloed towards the top.

 

Evans on his own

He crested the summit with a 15-second advantage over Porte and Gerrans and even managed to extend it on the descent. At one point, Porte tried to get rid of the race leader but he had no success and instead the two chasers were swallowed up by an 11-rider group.

 

The chasers tried to get organize but with Hermans and Bookwalter trying to block the pursuit, they were never going to catch Evans. The BMC leader took a beautiful solo win to become the new leader of the race while Haas beat Ulissi in the spring for 2nd, 15 seconds later.

 

Result:

1. Cadel Evans 3.34.05

2. Nathan Haas +0.15

3. Diego Ulissi

4. Adam Hansen

5. Simon Gerrans

6. Rory Sutherland

7. Brent Bookwalter

8. Ben Hermans

9. Daryl Impey

10. Robert Gesink

 

General classification:

1. Cadel Evans 10.46.39

2. Simon Gerrans +0.12

3. Diego Ulissi +0.15

4. Nathan Haas +0.27

5. Robert Gesink +0.29

6. Geraint Thomas

7. Daryl Impey +0.33

8. Brent Bookwalter

9. Rory Sutherland

10. Ben Hermans

 

Points classification:

1. Simon Gerrans 42

2. Diego Ulissi 40

3. Cadel Evans 35

4. Robert Gesink 23

5. Francesco Gavazzi 22

 

Mountains classification:

1. Adam Hansen 20

2. William Clarke 20

3. Cadel Evans 16

4. Simon Gerrans 12

5. Axel Domont 12

 

Young Rider Classification:

1. Kenny Elissonde 10.47.40

2. Luca Wackermann +0.17

3. Jack Haig

4. Carlos Verona +1.36

5. Danny Van Poppel +3.34

 

Teams classification:

1. BMC 32.21.17

2. Orica-GreenEDGE +0.43

3. Garmin-Sharp +1.45

4. FDJ.fr +2.00

5. Team Sky +2.19