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Rank: Sports Guru
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Tour de France runner-up Cadel Evans has withdrawn from the road time trial at the Olympic Games because of injury.
The Australian will undergo treatment on a knee injury and will make a decision on whether to travel to Beijing for the road race in the next week.
If he pulls out, Evans will be replaced by three-time world champion Michael Rogers.
On Monday, Evans dismissed rumours he had suffered an injury which might threaten his Olympic campaign, but after the flight home to Switzerland his right knee swelled up and he decided to visit an orthopaedic specialist for precautionary scans.
"I slipped on a wet floor on Sunday night and my team (Silence Lotto) doctor immediately had a look at it and said not to worry," said Evans.
"But on the flight home my knee began to swell up so I had to consider going to see a specialist who recommended cancelling my ride in the criterium in Belgium in favour of getting some scans done."
"It's not a major injury but it's something I will have to manage carefully."
"I recognised I might not be at my absolute best in the race against the clock but I can still make a significant contribution to the team effort for the road race. I'll be training and getting treatment over the next few days to confirm my participation by Monday."
"But I will not take a place in Beijing if everything doesn't go according to plan."
The 31-year-old won the time trial at last year's Goodluck Beijing road cycling test with Rogers second.
Australia has only qualified one starting position for the men's time trial at the Olympic Games.
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Rogers may be a better option anyway. A shame though, probably his only real chance of a medal as i assume one of the sprinters will be who everyone works for in the road race. Anyone else think all team members should get medals in the Olympic road race?
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Prawn wrote:Rogers may be a better option anyway. A shame though, probably his only real chance of a medal as i assume one of the sprinters will be who everyone works for in the road race. Anyone else think all team members should get medals in the Olympic road race? As everyone saw in the TdF, it is a team sport, so the team should get the glory. Bettini is going to be hard to beat in the road race though.
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Rumours coming through is that Popovych dared him to do the worm on the dance floor and Cadel misjudged his worm and smashed his knee.
But seriously, i am pretty disappointed, i was expecting Cadel to put in a big one to make up for his tour TT.
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I'm cool with that. Rogers is a better TTer anyway.
A sprinter won't neccesserily win the road race. Depends on the course and the riders.
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SteveW wrote:I'm cool with that. Rogers is a better TTer anyway.
A sprinter won't neccesserily win the road race. Depends on the course and the riders. A good breakaway rider like a Schumacher, Voight or Voekler always stands a good chance in an Olympic Road race. I could be wrong but I don't actually recall any of the absolute elilte sprinters winning one in recent times.
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Phat wrote:
A good breakaway rider like a Schumacher, Voight or Voekler always stands a good chance in an Olympic Road race. I could be wrong but I don't actually recall any of the absolute elilte sprinters winning one in recent times.
Or Stuart O'Grady a la 2007 Paris-Roubaix.
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mac wrote:
Or Stuart O'Grady a la 2007 Paris-Roubaix.
indeed. Interestingly, the three medallists in Sydney were all climbers (or in the case of Ullrich a time-trialler). 1. Jan Ullrich 2. Alexanre Vinokourov 3. Andreas Kloden
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Phat wrote:
A good breakaway rider like a Schumacher, Voight or Voekler always stands a good chance in an Olympic Road race. I could be wrong but I don't actually recall any of the absolute elilte sprinters winning one in recent times.
Yep. Very hard to chase breakaways and/or drive the peleton to the finish with only a team of 5 riders who dont normally race together as a team. It becomes more of an individual race than a team race.
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