While politicians at state
and federal level were discussing how to commemorate the victory — by erecting
a monument, hosting a parade or staging a massive party, among other ideas — the
citizens in Barwon Heads outside Melbourne were wearing yellow and pitched the
idea of naming a bridge near the town in honor of their favorite son.
Australians stayed up through
the night to watch the 34-year-old Evans ride to victory down the Champs-Elysees
in Sunday's final stage of cycling's greatest race.
So work started slowly across
Australia on Monday. SBS Television recorded its highest audience for a progam
in 2011 with its live broadcast of Sunday's finish reaching almost 2.5 million
viewers nationally — more than 10 percent of the population — for at least five
consecutive minutes.
As an encore, the public
broadcaster was to screen a special "Cadel — Le Triomphe" on Monday
night.
A photograph of a teary
Evans, bordered in yellow, was splashed across the front page of Monday's
Sydney Morning Herald newspaper under the headline "Joy and agony of a
champion." The front pages and the sports pages across the country were
dedicated to Evans, despite the newspapers going to print before Australia's
first ever winner of the Tour de France had formally crossed the finish.
Fairfax newspapers veteran
Tour correspondent Rupert Guinness likened Evans' achievement to Australia's
win in the 1983 America's Cup — when challenger Australia II, under the flag of
the boxing kangaroo, ended 132 years of dominance by American syndicates.
Commentators and news polls across the country ranked Evans' effort among the
best ever by an Australian athlete.
Victorian Institute of Sport
cycling coach Dave Sanders, credited with being among the people who convinced
Evans to switch from BMX racing to road racing, said the Tour win was the
equivalent of Australia winning the football World Cup.
"I'm making the
statement — it's the greatest individual achievement in Australian sporting
history and I challenge anybody to put up something against it," he was
quoted as saying.
Evans isn't expected back in
Australia until October, when he usually returns from Europe for the summer. In
the meantime, the road to his mother's house in Arthurs Creek in rural Victoria
state has already served as a bulletin board for fans, she reported, with some
of the message spray painted on the tarmac included "Crikey Cadel,”
"Le Tour 2011." "The markings on the road show that the hype has
leapt across the globe and Australians are celebrating the triumph of a local
hero," Evans' mother, Helen Cocks, wrote for the Herald Sun newspaper.
"It's wonderful that people are so excited by the Tour.
"I think Cadel's pitch
for a public holiday today is on the mark. We could call it "Yellow
Day." Cocks said she'd paced the floor of her farmhouse in rural Victoria
as her son virtually clinched victory in the penultimate time trial stage on
Saturday.
"All the time that I
watched him, during those extraordinary long times in front, you knew that he
had a chance," she told Melbourne's The Age newspaper. "I've been
speechless, breathless. But now there is an enormous relief; he has worked so
hard for it, and for once he had some luck." Federal Sports Minister Mark
Arbib said Evans — only the third cyclist from outside of Europe to win the
Tour since it began in 1903 — would inspire a new generation of cyclists.
"Cadel Evans'
inspirational effort has won him the admiration of all Australians," Arbib
said Monday. "He has worked tirelessly to win the most prestigious bike
race in the world after twice finishing second. Cadel has had ups and downs but
he displayed that never-give-up attitude which has put him at the top of the
podium in Paris." Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard was quick to
rule out the possibility of a national holiday but told Evans of the impact his
victory in the Tour de France would have on his compatriots.
Gillard spoke to Evans by
telephone before he got going on the final stage on Sunday and told him that
all of the country would be behind him as he rode to the finish line to become
the first Australian to win the 3,430-kilometer (2,131.2-mile) race.
"We did share a joke
about his impact on the economy of our nation," Gillard said. "I
suggested that he wasn't doing much good for national productivity because
everyone was coming to work bleary-eyed. He suggested that it'd all be all
right in the end because people would feel so full of morale that they'd be
cantering into work and working harder."