We caught-up with Evan after a wet and wild Tour of Britain 2006 stage three, won by the immaculately coiffed 2006 Milan-San Remo winner, Filippo Pozzato (Italy & Quick Step); our man had just finished dinner.
What was on the menu?
“Pasta and chicken, it was OK.”
It was a tough stage today I believe.
“It was full-on from the gun, after an hour or so the whole CSC team were away but Barloworld brought them back. At about half distance we turned a corner it became a cross-wind, CSC went into team time trial mode and it just split to pieces.
There were about 35/40 guys at the front, the whole CSC team was there; then Kristan House from our squad made the split. I was in the second group and initially Lotto was chasing hard but then they sat-up and the gap just soared.”
Why did they sit-up, weren’t they making ground?
“I think the main reason is that the Tour of Poland starts next week and they don’t want to ride themselves into the ground before that.”
After that you would just ride-in then?
“That was all we could do. It was raining hard, some of the descents were very dangerous and to make matters worse they had to re-route the stage because of a gas explosion near the race route – that added about ten miles to the distance. It was pretty grim at the end.”
Boonen crashed on one of the descents didn’t he?
“Yes, but I don’t think he did any damage, you can only get round that corner at about 10 mph, he couldn’t have been going much faster than that. We had ridden it in training so we knew what to expect.”
How is Ben Greenwood’s pursuit of the Tour of Britain 2006 King of the Mountains going?
“He’s not happy about how the day went. He took the first climb without too much problem but didn’t get any more points because he missed the split.”
Pedersen took the jersey back didn’t he?
“Yes, Goss (Aussie, Matt Goss who took the jersey after stage two) climbed-off. He hadn’t looked too great on the climbs the day before. I think it’s very unlikely that Pedersen can be beaten now.”
What’s the game-plan for tomorrow?
“I’m going to try and do a repeat of last year when I was away with Paul Manning (Landbouwkrediet) all day. He lives near the course so he’ll be motivated for the stage.
Thanks Evan – good luck tomorrow, and we’ll hear all about it tomorrow night.
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