Cadel Evans (BMC) was a small winner in today's Giro d'Italia time trial as he stopped his downwards trajectory and moved up from 9th to 7th. The Australian was pleased with his ride, claiming that he gave it all he had.

BMC Racing Team's Cadel Evans climbed from ninth to seventh in the overall standings at the Giro d'Italia Friday on the strength of an 11th-place finish in the individual time trial up Monte Grappa. With two stages remaining, Evans is 9:25 off the lead of Nairo Quintana (Movistar Team), who won the 26.8-kilometer race against the clock. Fabio Aru (Astana Pro Team) was second, 17 seconds back, to move into third overall, while Rigoberto Uran (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) was third at 1:26 to hold onto his second place overall.

Evans conceded 4:26 to Quintana but moved past Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin-Sharp) and Wilco Kelderman (Belkin Pro Cycling Team), who were previously seventh and eighth, respectively.

"Technically, I rode a pretty good time trial," Evans said. "You never do perfect, but you can hope to be close. For what I had, I got most of it out on the road." 

Evans started the time trial on his BMC timemachine TM01 but switched to the BMC teammachine SLR01 at a pre-determined part of the 19.3-km climb that averaged eight percent gradient. Watching from the car trailing Evans, BMC Racing Team President/General Manager Jim Ochowicz said he was pleased with the performance of the past world road and Tour de France champion.

"He made no mistakes. He always had a good cadence going," Ochowicz said. "We made the bike change going onto the hilly part and it all went smoothly. I think the result was good for him."

Saturday's penultimate stage features a summit finish at Monte Zoncolan, a 10.1-km climb that averages 11.9 percent with some stretches as steep as 22 percent. In 2010, Evans was second on Stage 15 that finished atop the Zoncolan.

"It is not a long climb, but it is a very, very hard climb," he said. "We are in the third week of a very hard tour and a lot can still happen. As we will probably see today, the small differences make a big difference in the third week, especially in a grand tour as hard as this one."

The race finishes Sunday in Trieste with a 172-km stage featuring a circuit finish.