Aussie Aussie Aussie oi oi oi

Cadel Evans will lead the Tour de France peloton into Paris tomorrow ©Graham Watson

His goal was to pull back 57sec on Leopard Trek's Andy Schleck and take over the yellow jersey lead.

He had 42.5km on a relatively hilly and technically challenging course around Grenoble to do it.

The 34 year old became the virtual leader before the halfway mark, and by the 27.5km mark he had more than double the time he needed to win the title.

Evans finished an impressive 2m31s ahead of Andy.

All he has to do is make it to Paris tomorrow and he will have won the 2011 Tour de France.

The 2009 World Road Champion was also within striking distance of winning the stage.

Tony Martin (HTC Highroad), who won on the identical course in June's Criterium du Dauphine TT, took that honour with his time of 55m33s, just 7sec faster than Evans. 

Alberto Contador (Saxo Bank) fired one last shot to finish 3rd in the stage +1m05. His good time pulled him up to 5th overall behind Evans, the two Schleck brothers and previous Tour leader Thomas Voeckler (Europcar).

After placing second in 2007 and 2008 Evans is set to be the first ever Australian to win the Tour de France. Although there is one stage to go in this year's Tour, tradition dictates the yellow jersey leader will not be attacked. 

"It's been a bit of a strange race. In the mountains there wasn't a definitive strong team, but we did everything right each step of the way," Evans said. "Everyone in my team, every step of the way, we did everything we could to put me in the right position today.

"I can't quite believe it all quite now. My thanks go to everyone who played a part in today – we're talking 20 years of work has been put into this performance.

"There has been a lot of great work put in by people behind me – some are still with us and some are not any more – but I hope the sun is shining tomorrow on the Champs-Elysées and we get to the finish without any problems."

Kiwi connection - back in 1997, Evans won his first ever Mountain Bike World Cup race in Wellington, NZ.

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