Cadel Evans is heading for a second straight runner-up finish in the Tour de France after again failing to make up the needed time against his main rival in the last time trial.
Barring an unexpected mishap, Carlos Sastre will win the Tour on Sunday, with Evans having to settle for second place on the podium.
The 31-year-old Australian headed into Saturday's 20th stage needing to overcome a time deficit of 1 minute, 34 seconds to Sastre. He only trimmed 29 seconds off the Team CSC rider's lead and trails him by 1:05 before Sunday's processional final stage around Paris.
"Sastre's ride in the time trial today for me was a real surprise," Evans said after finishing the 53-kilometer (32.9-mile) ride from Cerilly to Saint-Amand-Montrond in seventh place. Sastre placed 12th as German rider Stefan Schumacher clinched his second clock race of the Tour, beating two-time world champion Fabian Cancellara by 21 seconds.
Evans, a Silence-Lotto rider who was 23 seconds behind Tour winner Alberto Contador last year, said Sastre benefited from having a much stronger team _ particularly in the Alpine stages, where Sastre managed to finally drop Evans on the famed climb up to L'Alpe d'Huez, the turning point of the Tour.
"On the climbs, CSC were so strong. It comes down to they have two or three times the budget we do," Evans said. "They can straight away buy much better quality riders. Strength in numbers ... it was no surprise."
Evans beat Sastre by over 2:30 in last year's equivalent time trial, and was surprised to beat him by such a small margin this time. Austrian rider Bernhard Kohl finished only 16 seconds behind Evans, after being 1:20 slower over a much shorter distance on stage four's time trial in Cholet.
"There were some guys riding surprisingly fast," Evans said. "I got some time checks from the other riders and thought, 'What's going on here?'"
After losing to Contador's superior Discovery Channel team last year, Evans again had to scrap largely alone as CSC often sent three riders _ Cancellara, Jens Voigt and Andy Schleck _ to create a fast tempo to exhaust him.
"There were guys attacking me left right and center," Evans said. "Defending from that is not an easy task."
Evans was lucky to escape serious injury to his left shoulder when he crashed on stage nine, and recovered to gain the yellow jersey in the high Pyrenees on stage 10. He held on to the lead until CSC's Frank Schleck took it from him on stage 15.
"I am still bruised and sore from the first week. I wore the yellow jersey and was able to defend the yellow jersey," he said. "When you are considered a favorite it is even more difficult to win a stage as you are a more watched rider. Instead of two or three riders worrying about you, maybe there is 10, or the whole peloton."
Having finished eighth overall in 2005, fourth in 2006, and runner-up twice, Evans said he has "three or four good Tours left" to finally become the first Australian to win the coveted race.
"I am always proud to promote the sport a bit. Cycling is not in our culture," he said. "It's a beautiful sport, enjoy it. To defend yellow as long as I did, that was a pretty good ride."
