Still feeling tired after the Giro d'Italia, Cadel Evans did a decent time trial in today's stage of the Tour de Suisse, setting the 11th fastest time. The Australian now targets an overall top 10 in the 9-day race ahead of the final two mountain stages.
Cadel Evans finished 11th and Steve Morabito was 20th for the BMC Racing Team in Friday's individual time trial at the Tour de Suisse. The looping, 24.5-kilometer course featured two uncategorized climbs and finished with a long downhill.
World time trial champion and race leader Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) took the win by 22 seconds over Tom Dumoulin (Team Giant-Shimano). World road champion Rui Costa (Lampre-Merida) was third, 28 seconds back.
Evans was 76 seconds off the pace while Morabito had the 10th fastest time at the first intermediate time check (10.4 km) to finish 1:38 seconds behind the winning time.
With two days to go, Martin leads Dumoulin by 28 seconds and Costa is third at 1:05. Evans moved up 10 spots to 16th place and is 2:07 off the lead.
"I am still a bit tired from the Giro d'Italia, so I did not really have high expectations," Evans said. "So for that, the result was satisfying. It was a good, testing course with a little bit of everything: a little bit of climbing, a couple of little steep climbs and some quite fast rolling sections.
"This puts me close to the first 10 in the classification, which is sort of the minimum standards that we come here for at the Tour of Switzerland. So overall, not a great day, but a good day."
"I am pretty satisfied with how it went," sports director Fabio Baldato said. "Now Cadel is up to 16th on the general classification. But with 15 or 20 seconds, we can be in the top 10. That is the goal.
"Morabito also did a pretty good time trial, too. With these two guys – and the help of all the team – they can really show themselves the next two stages with mountain finishes."
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