(Transcript from SBS World News Radio)
Cadel Evans has announced he'll retire from cycling early next year, partly due to a poorer than expected performance in this year's Giro d'Italia where he finished eighth.
Evans, who won the world championship road race in 2009 and the Tour de France in 2011, has revealed his last ever event will be his own inaugural Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race in February.
Greg Dyett looks back on an illustrious career.
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The year is 2011.
The place, the Champs Elysees in Paris.
"Australian, Cadel Evans!"
Cadel Evans has just won the Tour de France, the ultimate prize in cycling.
He's standing on the winner's podium wearing the yellow jersey, draped in the Australian flag.
SBS cycling commentator Mike Tomalaris almost can't believe what he's seeing.
"I didn't think I'd see this day. I didn't think I'd see hit. (Commentator) No, it would have been a dream a few years ago and it's only just coming to fruition, it's just magnificent site seeing an Aussie there in the yellow jersey."
As for Cadel Evans, it's time to express his gratitude.
"I just want to say thank you to everyone who's had faith in me in my career, from everyone from my teammates, my friends, my colleagues and also my competitors and everyone here for the 2011 Tour de France, I think it's just been a beautiful race and thanks to these two brothers here we really are, I think it was a fantastic experience for everyone involved and I couldn't be happier than to be standing up right here in the middle here."
Three years on from that victory, Mike Tomalaris explains why very few followers of the sport thought they'd see an Australian cyclist win the race.
"We never thought an Australian would be in a position to conquer the tour. First of all you need to be very strong in the mountains, you need to be a very specialised time trialist. We just didn't have those kind of athletes, those kind of cyclists being developed in our country, fairly flat country compared to other parts of the world so when Cadel started coming through the system and worked his way from mountain bikes to the professional road scene, well I think we knew there and then that he was a champion in the making and he's proven that in time."
Mike Tomalaris says that although Cadel Evans is slight in stature, his mental strength surpasses many of his competitors.
"That's his biggest strength. He has wonderful mental aptitude and he certainly knows how to deliver it. He's a fighter all the way."
Tomalaris says Evans reached the top of his sport in the years following the doping scandals which sullied cycling's image.
Cadel came onto the scene on the back end of the black era of Lance Armstrong and I think he was one rider who represented the new wave of clean riders. He's never been accused of doping and he's enjoyed his success through sheer hard work so he can be very satisfied and very proud of that record as well."
And he believes Cadel Evans will be revered as a true sporting legend - somone comparable in stature to the best of the best.
"The likes of Don Bradman, Dawn Fraser, Rod Laver, those sort of athletes, Australian athletes. You may ask why. Well the reason is he's won the Tour de France, the only Australian to do so, a three week torture test and it's the last frontier for a cyclist to win what is the most gruelling and most spectacular race of them all and for Cadel to be the only Aussie to have conquered the tour well that's the reason why I put him up there as an Australian legend."
