Cadel Evans to win Australia's first ever Tour de France Crown

Australia’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard immediately declared a national holiday which visibly shocked Evans at the traditional Tour de France winners' press conference on Saturday night, although he will not be formally declared the winner until he promenades on to the Champs-Élysées on Sunday afternoon.

As his toughest task on Sunday will be uncorking the champagne bottles for the peloton on the gentle roll in from Creteil while he receives a police escort all the way, that can be taken for granted.

“I can’t quite believe it all now,” he said. “My thanks go to everyone who played a part in today – we’re talking 20 years of work that 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, like Aldo Sassi.

“He said to me last year, 'Now you’ve won the world championship, you’ve made yourself a complete rider but you can win a Grand Tour and I hope for you it’s the Tour de France’.

"It was he who believed in me from 2001 and he never doubted my abilities, he never gave up with me and he worked through good and bad.”

Evans started the day in third position 57 seconds behind the leader Andy Schleck and although undoubtedly a better time-triallist than the man in yellow, he still had it all to do after a brutal three weeks.

There was much talk before Saturday's 26.4 mile time-trial of this possibly being the closest Tour de France finish since Greg LeMond defeated Laurent Fignon by eight seconds in 1989, but Evans was determined that there be no dramas and finger nail biting.

He had endured enough of that against Alberto Contador in 2007 when he lost on the final day by 23 seconds and in 2008 when he lost the Tour to Carlos Sastre by 48 seconds.

No, this was his moment and he was going to absolutely nail it or perish in the attempt.

Furthermore he had anticipated this exact scenario. Evans interrupted a hard block of training earlier this summer to race the Critérium du Dauphiné with the main objective of riding this exact course under racing conditions. On Saturday he was rewarded a hundred fold.

This was his moment. Showing bucketloads of Auissie grit and just a touch of Welsh hwyl - his great grandfather emigrated to Northern Territories from Wales - Evans went full gas from start to finish and at one point seemed poised to take the stage win as well from Tony Martin, who had produced a remakable ride much earlier in the day.

In the end Evans finished second but a full two minutes and 31 seconds ahead of Schleck to win the yellow jersey by the comfortable margin of 1min 34sec from the Luxembourg rider, who has found the individual time trials his Achilles’ heel.

Not that Schleck 'choked’ in any sense, he is just not a great time-triallist.

The joy he shared with brother Frank, who will join him on the podium in Paris on Sunday after finishing third in the General Classification, was great to see.

Victory was no more than Evans deserved having been the most aggressive GC rider on view throughout the three weeks.

He did sit back just fractionally in the Pyrenees, but Evans knew exactly when the big push would come and predictably enough it occurred when Andy Schleck set sail 37.2 miles from home on that magnificent stage on Thursday which finished on the Galibier.

Nobody wanted to pick up the gauntlet except Evans and his pursuit of Schleck was every bit as remarkable as Schleck’s break.

He refused to panic on Friday when he was forced to stop three times with a mechanical problem on the Col du Télégraphe on a horrible short stage that took in the Galibier and Alpe D’Huez.

Worst still it all happened just as Schleck and Contador went off on the break.

A full scale panic was just around the corner, but not for Evans. Calmly, but with another enormous effort on his part, he pulled the race back, losing out only to Contador.

On Saturday he rode in a manner befitting the Australian cycling fraternity he represents, who have been a massive force for the good on the Tour for over 30 years.

Phil Anderson, Brad McGee, Stuart O’Grady and Robbie McEwen were the pathfinders blazing the trail and on Saturday Evans finally finished the job. Ripper, or chapeau as they say in these parts.