The top-10 stories of the second half of the 2011 Tour de France

1. Evans at last

A classic form of story telling features a hero who tries and fails, learns, tries and fails again and on the third try, succeeds at last. The exciting thing about Cadel Evans’ Tour win is that we all saw him over the last decade try and fail, learn, grow, and at last succeed. His Tour win was an overnight success that began 11 years ago when he switched from mountain biking to road racing full time.

Evans was two times second at the Tour and broke his elbow last year just before taking the yellow jersey. Over the years he learned patience and he learned how to make his own luck.

During this Tour, Evans never crashed or was delayed by crashes. He had chosen and helped build a team that was not as star-filled as some but was 100 percent focused on his GC success and surprised many with its second place in the team time trial. On the tallest climbs, Evans was often without teammates, but that’s when he stepped up to do his part of the job, charging to the stage 4 win, attacking on the stage 16 descent to take seconds from his rivals, putting his nose into the wind to chase Andy Schleck up the Galibier on stage 18 and to rejoin the leaders after a mechanical on the way to the Alpe d’Huez on stage 19. And finally, in Saturday’s individual race of truth, riding the time trial of his life — exactly the one that he’s always believed he was capable of.

FILED UNDER: News / Road / Tour de France