Spain's Alejandro Valverde doubts that Australian Cadel Evans can hang on to his overall lead in the Tour de France because of a weak back-up team.

Evans, who rides for Silence, leads the Tour going into stage 11 on Wednesday after riders had a rest day on Tuesday.

But Valverde, who dropped to 14th after his collapse on Tour de France: Cadel Evans wins yellow jersey on stage 10 ...
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"Silence and Rabobank don't have the strongest of teams and they're not great in the mountain stages," he said.

"We can't discount Evans, but I think (Rabobank's) Denis Menchov and (CSC's) Carlos Sastre are now the big favourites, especially Menchov."

Evans, 31, will head into Wednesday's stage from Lannemezan to Foix with an overall lead of one second from CSC's Frank Schleck after capturing the first yellow jersey of his career.

And he has a good chance of retaining the lead with the 167.5 km outing twisting through the foothills of the Pyrenees.

Yet with mountain stages 15, 16 and 17 from 20 July to come, Valverde and Caisse d'Epargne team-mate Oscar Pereiro have picked Russian Menchov and Spaniard Sastre to pip the Australian to the yellow jersey in Paris.

"Sastre is still in the running although he perhaps lacks that little bit extra that could make the difference between winning the Tour or not," said 2006 Tour champion Pereiro.

"I think Menchov is a little bit stronger, he's going well. Evans' team is relatively weak, that's his main problem."

Valverde's demise to over four minutes off the pace was in part because of a strong performance from Danish team CSC.

And team manager Bjarne Riis said his riders have only just begun to show what they are capable of.

"Our Tour so far has been good. We spent the first week following wheels and that was what we wanted," said Riis.

"I believe it was our best tactic to save energy for the mountains. We saw yesterday that it's in the mountains where you are going to see this team."

(BBC)

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