CADEL EVANS has the capabilities to one day win the Tour de France despite coming so close to victory for the second year running, Silence-Lotto team manager Marc Sergeant believes.
The vote of faith comes despite the fact last year's champion Alberto Contador (Astana) of Spain, who beat Evans by 23 seconds, is expected to return after missing this year's race.
Astana were not invited to compete this year following past doping controversies, even though they occurred while the team was under different management. Contador only joined Astana after last year's tour, having won for the Discovery Channel Team, which later disbanded.
While Evans went into last year's final time trial on the penultimate day as an outsider before clinching second place overall, this year he was favourite.
However, in the crucial 20th stage time trial from Cerilly to Saint-Amand-Montrond, Evans could not reel in his one minute, 34 second deficit to race leader Carlos Sastre (CSC).
Evans, who began the stage fourth overall, still moved up to second place, but was left 1:05 behind the Spaniard for Sunday's 143-kilometre final leg from Etampes to the Champs Elysees in Paris.
"Contador and others are coming back. But I am still convinced he can win this race," Sergeant said.
Nevertheless, Sergeant concedes that despite the Belgian team increasing its support for Evans, it must look at bolstering its line-up of climbers to help him in the mountains if it is to win the Tour.
"Last year, we were pretty glad with second," Sergeant said. "This year, it is a little bit different because we thought we could win. It's disappointing but that's life.
"It is still a great performance to finish second in the Tour de France. But for sure we are going to look for a good team next year to support Cadel again."
Sergeant was reticent to criticise his team, but conceded the poor showing of Ukrainian recruit Yaroslav Popovych - a former teammate of Lance Armstrong and Contador - had had an impact.
He cited stage 17 to L'Alpe-d'Huez, which was won by Sastre, who took the yellow jersey and his 1:34 lead on Evans, which may have been less had Popovych been by his side to limit the loss.
"The loss … well, let's say Popovych, if he was in his place … maybe he could have brought that [overall] gap down to 40 seconds, but then he wasn't," Sergeant said.
"But it is fair to say Sastre was good at L'Alpe-d'Huez and that today Cadel was just not good enough."
Sergeant is still confident Evans, who has one year left of his contract with the team, will not use a buy-out clause in his deal to move to another team: "I think Cadel is quite happy in this team."
But if Evans had had a better team around him, he would not have had to do so much of the work to fend off all attacks against him, especially earlier in the Tour when he defended the yellow jersey for five days. It showed in the stage 20 time trial where Evans lacked his gusto and fluidity shown in the stage four time trial at Cholet. There, he placed fourth at 21 seconds to German winner Stefan Schumacher (Gerolsteiner) who also won Saturday's time trial, and beat Sastre by 2:34.
In Saturday's race against the clock, Sergeant quickly suspected a subpar performance was on the cards from Evans - who was eighth in his Tour debut in 2005, fourth in 2006 and second last year. "When I saw him wobbling with his shoulder … Then I had confirmation on the first intermediate split," Sergeant said.
At that point, the 13km mark, Evans had clawed back only eight seconds of Sastre's lead. "He should have gained 25 seconds … It was only [eight] seconds. From there on it was very hard."
Sergeant agreed Evans was at the ebb of his form, but likened Sastre to a boxer winning on points.
"Sastre did a good time trial, but not spectacular," he said. "It was like boxing, but not a knockout. Everyone expected a win [by Evans], but Sastre won on points.".
"If Cadel was in the same shape as he was in Cholet, he would have won the Tour."