Cadel Evans shares wisdom with locked-down AusCycling juniors

Australia’s young talents were treated to an audience with cycling royalty last week when AusCycling arranged a private Q&A session between Cadel Evans and the Under-19 Junior National Road Team.

Dialling in from his home in Switzerland, Evans candidly shared wisdom from his glittering career, which famously included winning the Road Race World Championship in 2009 and the Tour de France in 2011.

The hour-long chat with the superstar gave AusCycling’s juniors a much-needed boost of inspiration. For the past two years, Australia’s 17- and 18-year-old cyclists have been unable to race in the green and gold due to travel restrictions. Even plans for domestic training camps have been frustrated.

The mountain biker turned road champion answered a wide-ranging set of questions, offering nuggets of golden advice from the philosophical to the humorously practical.

“As respect to the Italians, if you get pasta, don’t cut it up into short pieces,” Evans said during the session, explaining how elite Australian cyclists must learn to live abroad.

“I’ve seen a lot of good riders get into professional teams and come over to Europe, whether they’re from America or Australia or elsewhere, but they couldn’t adapt to the culture, so they quit,” he said.

Tour de France winner Cadel Evans spoke to Australia’s Junior National Road Team via video call.

As well as sharing his professional experience (Evans said he rode between 8 and 15 hours per week as a junior, but he’d regrettably tossed out his old training diaries), his opinion on race radios and how he used YouTube to recon a French mountain climb before taking the yellow jersey there, Evans offered advice that went beyond the bike.

“Race to be the best that you can be,” he said. “It’s useless to be disappointed that you didn’t win, if you did the best that you can to get the result. Be happy with that. Otherwise, you’ll be repeatedly disappointed and dismayed.

“That applies to life – whether you’re studying at university, being a parent, being an athlete,” Evans said.

Junior Road Race National Champions Alyssa Polites (VIC) and Dylan George (NSW) were part of the captive audience.

“The way he was talking about all his experiences in Europe, that really intrigued me,” Polites said. “It gave me a cool scope of what to expect, maybe, in the future, if I get the chance.”

“He has a very holistic mentality to life, and I really admire that,” George said.

In delightful COVID-era fashion, the session ended with Evans attempting to talk over the squeals of his two-year-old son, who had burst into their home office in the middle of the call.

Photo credit: John Veage