Cycling Evans triumphs in road cycling world championships
30 Sep 2009
Ex-Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) cyclist Cadel Evans has claimed a magnificent victory at the 2009 UCI Road World Championships, becoming the first Australian to win the 262.2km men’s elite race, in Mendrisio, Switzerland, on Sunday 27 September.
Evans beat a world-class field in 6 hours, 56 minutes, 26 seconds — 27 seconds ahead of both Russia’s Alexandr Kolobnev, in second place, and Spain’s Joaquin Rodriguez, in third. Jayco/AIS cyclist Simon Gerrans also performed well in the race, finishing in tenth place.
Other ex-AIS cyclists in the Australian Cyclones team — Stuart O’Grady, Wesley Sulzberger, Mathew Hayman and Simon Clarke — supported Evans and Gerrans in the leading group.
‘It’s funny when you work for something and dream of something for so long when it actually happens you don’t believe it,’ Evans said. ‘For me it’s about a 16-year dream, so a while in the making, but to come through in the elite ranks above all, that’s really something special.’
Evans was an AIS scholarship holder from 1995 to 2000 in the former AIS Mountain Bike program, in the lead up to the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. The AIS now operates an internationally renowned road cycling program in partnership with Cycling Australia’s high performance program, providing coaching and sports science expertise to Australia’s best road cyclists.
Evans will get the chance to defend his new world title in his home town at the 2010 UCI Road World Championships, which will take place in Geelong, and Melbourne.
The previous win of the men’s under-23 time trial event by Jayco/AIS team member Jack Bobridge on 23 September, means that, with Evans’s victory, Australia topped the medal tally for the 2009 UCI Road World Championships.
