Cadel began 2009 with his usual dogged determination and desire to win. As ever, he saw his main job as finishing the Tour in yellow. But as early as February there were signs the year would not be the game-changer he hoped for.
In the first days of February, Cadel left Australia for Europe to begin the racing season. Cadel was a long way from home when he heard about the Black Saturday bushfires that swept his home state of Victoria on 7 February. The most deadly bushfires in Australian history, many people were killed. Of those who died, 159 were in the Kinglake area.
Cadel had a strong sentimental attachment to Kinglake. It was on the Kinglake mountain bike tracks that the teenaged Cadel’s cycling dreams really took shape. His mother and many friends still lived in the area. As the fires raged, Cadel desperately tried to find out whether everyone he knew was safe. It was an agonising 24 hours before he knew for sure his mum was alive. Later he got the news that a childhood friend tragically died on his farm.
While Cadel was trying to deal with the events going on back home, team politics were flaring up at Silence–Lotto. The new season had brought the usual string of new arrivals and departures. Yaroslav Popovych left the team, but there were promising new recruits too, including Dutch rider Thomas Dekker and Austrian Bernhard Kohl. In the last Tour, Kohl won the polka dot jersey for best performance in the mountains. He’d come third overall, behind Cadel and Sastre. Soon after, Kohl signed with Silence–Lotto.
Then Kohl failed a drug test. Kohl was out and now Silence–Lotto had a huge hole to fill. It was unsettling for Cadel but he had to adjust and quickly shifted his focus back to racing.
The Vuelta a Andalucía was Cadel’s first race with Thomas Dekker, and he was looking forward to it. Dekker had won a few big races, including the Tour de Romandie two years earlier. It was a boost for Cadel to have someone like Dekker working alongside him.
Dekker fulfilled his promise in Stage 3 of the Vuelta a Andalucía. The Silence–Lotto team reeled in a breakaway group with a massive nine-minute lead over the peloton. Their teamwork helped Cadel to third place.
There was another minor victory in Paris–Nice in March, with Cadel placing fourth in Stage 6. Small successes were fine, but Silence–Lotto really wanted a big win. Rival Belgian team Quick Step already had 11 wins for the season. When the Coppi e Bartali rolled around, the pressure was on Cadel to deliver. This was especially true since he’d won in 2008. Cadel did perform strongly, winning Stage 5 of the race and coming second overall.
Silence–Lotto wanted Cadel to carry on this success by racing in the Giro d’Italia in May. Cadel loves the Giro and he loves Italy, but this time he wasn’t sure he should take part. He knew it would be near impossible to win the Giro and the Tour in the same year. Two three-week races in a year would be too taxing. If he was going to race in the Giro, he wanted to give it everything he had. Cadel felt he couldn’t do that without compromising the Tour de France.
Cadel raced in the Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré in June. As he had done in the previous year, Cadel looked to this race to prepare him for the Tour. He wanted to prove to himself that his body was doing what it needed to do. So he did. He won Stage 1, an individual time trial, and took the yellow jersey. He held it in Stage 2. After losing yellow in Stage 3, he regained the lead in the GC in Stage 4, which was another individual time trial. Cadel was well ahead of rival Alberto Contador, in fifth place.
Cadel was rightly confident in his abilities against the clock. But again he had problems in the mountain stages, where teamwork plays such a vital role. Stage 5 was a climb up Mt Ventoux, the infamous peak that had featured in the previous year’s race. After Stage 5 Cadel slipped back to second position in the GC. He later bitterly said that he’d done the best he could by himself.
Stage 7 was one of the hardest and most mountainous days of the race. It included a climb up the steep Col du Galibier. Here Cadel’s team was useful, with Australian Matthew Lloyd riding a spectacular race that set Cadel up to attack the four lead riders.
With the right support Cadel will attack. He proved this in Stage 7 of the Dauphiné. Thanks to Matt Lloyd, Cadel was well positioned to surge repeatedly as the peloton climbed the Col du Galibier. The ride wasn’t enough to put Cadel back in the lead. Yet, with every turn of the pedals, he was proving a point. Cadel could attack.
In the end, it was another second place for Cadel in the GC. Still, race organisers praised Cadel’s attacking style and said it made the Dauphiné exciting. As usual, Cadel’s response was modest. He wasn’t interested in performing for the TV cameras. His mind was on winning a different race. Cadel was focussed on the big one—the upcoming Tour de France.
As a two-time runner-up, Cadel was again a favourite for the 2009 Tour. But Cadel knew this would be a tough Tour for him to win. Big changes to the course made this Tour even more suited to strong teams than in previous years.
Cadel was used to the result of the Tour coming down to the second-last stage, traditionally an individual time trial. But in this year’s race a mountain finish on top of Mt Ventoux replaced the last individual time trial. There would also be a team time trial stage, which relied on every rider in the team being a star. That would suit Astana, which was back from last year’s ban. Astana had a lineup of big names including Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong, now out of retirement. Cadel knew Silence–Lotto would struggle in the team time trial against that kind of competition.
As the Tour approached, and just days before the race began, the Silence-Lotto team announced that Thomas Dekker had tested positive for drugs. Dekker was banned for two years and was out of the Tour.
A British rider called Charlie Wegelius replaced Dekker. Although Wegelius had never won a race or even a stage of a race, he was liked and respected as a perfect domestique in the mountains. He didn’t want the spotlight for himself. Wegelius’s goal was to set things up for other people to win.
Even though Cadel was happy with Wegelius, Dekker’s loss was a huge blow. His team began the Tour with very low morale. And from the team time trial onwards, it was clear Silence–Lotto was in trouble.
The team time trial was Stage 4 of the race. As with an individual time trial, the teams raced the clock rather than against other teams. Teams set off one by one. The course was technically difficult. Coupled with windy conditions, the stage was tough for all the teams.
Silence–Lotto suffered the most in the team time trial. Young Belgian rider Jurgen Van Den Broeck crashed when he crossed wheels with another rider in the wind, and a second teammate, Johan Vansummeren, had a flat tyre. Silence–Lotto finished a disastrous 13th. It was early in the race, and Cadel was already two minutes 59 seconds down in the GC.
By contrast, stage winners Astana absolutely smashed it. The team now had four of the top five spots in the GC. Lance Armstrong crowed to the media that the race was over for some riders after Stage 4. He didn’t mention Cadel’s name, but he may as well have. With such a huge gap to make up already, Cadel knew his Tour was slipping away. His only hope of victory or even a podium finish was to attack wherever he could.
In Stage 8, Cadel saw an opportunity. The day’s racing included a nightmarish 1800-metre climb up Mt Ventoux. It was a baking hot day and the landscape was bleak, rocky and shadeless. Still, Cadel pushed himself. Soon he was in a breakaway group of ten cyclists. He was slogging his hardest, doing whatever he could to gain time.
The other riders in the breakaway didn’t want Cadel with them. They knew that with Cadel in the breakaway, strong teams like Astana would attack. That was because Astana had riders ahead of Cadel in the GC and wanted to protect their lead. The other riders in the breakaway yelled at Cadel to drop back.
Cadel refused to be told what to do. He maintained his position as long as he could. But with no supporting riders from Silence–Lotto able to keep up the pace and help him, Cadel eventually had to drop back into the peloton anyway. At the end of the day’s racing, Cadel had to admit that his attack was a waste of energy. At the same time, he was furious. He was criticised for not attacking and was criticised when he did attack.
By Stage 15, Cadel’s tilt at winning the Tour was over. After the stage finish in the ski town of Verbier, France, Cadel called the day one of the worst in his Tour career. He started more than three minutes down in the GC and slipped further and further back to end up four minutes 27 seconds down. He tweeted to fans that he knew he looked terrible on the bike, but that was nothing compared to how bad he felt – Cadel wasn’t feeling right physically.
By the closing week of the race, Marc Coucke, who owned one of the team’s major sponsors, announced that Cadel wouldn’t be the sole leader of the team in the future. He noted that Jurgen Van Den Broeck was performing surprisingly well and would play a significant role in the future of the team. The Belgian rider would be at least a co-leader with Cadel.
Cadel didn’t comment other than to say his Tour performance had suffered from the effects of politics and stress. It was a typical Cadel understatement.
Cadel finished the Tour in 30th place, squarely beaten by teammate Jurgen Van Den Broeck, who finished 15th. Cadel’s place was later adjusted to 28th after other riders were disqualified for doping, including Lance Armstrong. The exact place was irrelevant though. There was no way around the fact that 2009 was the worst performance of Cadel’s Tour career. Certainly, it was well off the pace of his podium finishes in the two previous years.
Cadel was dispirited. Like all Tour riders at the end of the race, he looked exhausted. His rippling leg muscles were withered and there was almost no fat on him. The three weeks of intense effort was a huge strain on his body. But the mental toll was worse.
Cadel hadn’t won the Tour in other years, but he’d always been able to do his best. This year, he didn’t feel as though he had. A combination of illness and team politics had got in his way and he found that hard to cope with.
Cadel decided to escape the fallout from the Tour. He went home to the mountains, where he rested and reflected on what had gone wrong.
But Cadel, being Cadel, was soon back in training. He wasn’t going to let the rest of the season slide just because his Tour was a disaster. The Vuelta a España and the World Championships were coming up. He still had a chance to score a big win for the season.
In August, Cadel sat down with Silence–Lotto management to work through the issues between them. After some tense discussion, the awkward situation was resolved. Cadel announced he would compete in the Vuelta a España as part of the Silence–Lotto team.
The third and final Grand Tour of the season, the Vuelta didn’t have the glitz of the Tour de France. For Cadel that meant he could focus on the race without having to handle the hype.
The race would also be a chance for Cadel to prove himself after the Tour. By doing well in the Vuelta a España, Cadel would prove to the world he’d bounced back from defeat. It might even show Silence–Lotto that Cadel deserved to be sole leader of the team in the next season, instead of having to split the job with Jurgen Van Den Broeck. It would definitely be a first for cycling in Cadel’s home country, since no Australian had ever won a stage in the Vuelta.
So Cadel approached the race fresh and motivated to win. Despite his disastrous Tour, Cadel was a favourite to win the Vuelta. Spanish rider Alejandro Valverde was considered his main rival.
In the 2009 Vuelta a España, the real battle for the GC riders didn’t begin until the peloton reached the mountains in Stage 5.
By Stage 6, Cadel had muscled his way into the GC top ten. Stage 7 was an individual time trial. Conditions for the stage were miserable, with a strong headwind blowing. Cadel came tenth, which lifted him to sixth in the GC rankings. Then in Stage 8, the first really big mountains of the race, Cadel placed fourth. He shot to the top of the GC rankings and grabbed the golden jersey, the Vuelta’s version of the Tour de France’s yellow. But Cadel led by the slimmest of margins. He was just two seconds ahead of rival Valverde. The following day, Valverde came third in Stage 9. The time bonus he earned for a podium finish pushed him ahead of Cadel.
Cadel was now seven seconds behind Valverde. It was a gap Cadel could definitely make up if only he could hang in there. He was sure he could do it. Finally he’d found the form that had deserted him during the Tour. He knew this part of Spain well and was familiar with all the climbs. It looked like the Vuelta was his to win.
But then came Stage 13. It included several steep, difficult climbs. The finish was on top of the Sierra Nevada, the highest point in the race. Cadel’s ride was tough but incident-free until the second-last mountain, Alto de Monachil. There, Cadel punctured his rear tyre. For his own safety, he knew he needed to change the tyre before attempting any high-speed descents.
The Silence–Lotto team car was 40 seconds behind. Rather than wait for it, Cadel decided to let the neutral mechanics change his tyre for him. Most races have a neutral support team car that follows the riders. The car is equipped with spare tyres and bikes. As the name suggests, neutral support can help any rider from any team.
The neutral support let Cadel down badly that day. The mechanics tried three different wheels, but they just couldn’t seem to fit them correctly. To make the situation worse, the TV cars stopped to film the wheel change. That caused a traffic jam, which stopped the Silence–Lotto car getting through to Cadel. Eventually, the Silence–Lotto mechanic got out of the team car and ran through the traffic with a spare bike for Cadel.
The delay ate up one minute and 23 seconds. To make matters worse, Cadel forgot to grab his drink bottle from his bike when he swapped bikes, and he was handed a ten-second penalty for accepting a water bottle from the team car. All up, the bungle cost Cadel one minute and 33 seconds. In a race that should have been his, Cadel suddenly found himself chasing.
Although he tried hard to make up the lost time, he couldn’t. He ended up coming third overall with a losing margin of one minute and 32 seconds. If not for the puncture, Cadel could have won the race.
The curse of the Nearly Man had struck again. Cycling fans and journalists jumped at the chance to criticise Cadel. Everyone had a theory. Some people thought Cadel was simply unlucky. Others thought his problem was a weak team. Or perhaps Cadel just didn’t have what it took to win a major race.
Cadel himself had always believed that if he worked hard enough he’d eventually win the big race he dreamed of. But as the end of the 2009 season loomed, he started to doubt himself. It seemed his losing streak was never going to end.