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Gap - Cadel Evans has often been seen as cycling's underachiever, but now has perhaps his best chance to win the Tour de France after twice finishing as runner-up.
Evans was the big winner from Tuesday's attack by defending champion Alberto Contador of Spain. While the Schleck brothers from Luxembourg lost time, Evans managed to stay with Contador and even finished three seconds ahead of him.
That gives the 34-year-old Australian an almost two-minute cushion over Contador, and means that during the three stages in the Alps that start on Wednesday he is under no pressure to break away from his major rivals - only to make sure they don't break away from him.
"Today was an opportunity for us to see what could happen. We assumed that at some point Contador was going to try to take some time back. His move when he made it was the perfect opportunity for Cadel to counter," said Jim Ochowicz, manager of Evans' BMC squad. "We've capitalised on opportunities, and we've made our own opportunities too. Cadel followed the Contador move first, but then Cadel made the second move and that really put the gap on it over the top."
Evans added that he was in no hurry.
"I took my time and looked around to see what was going on," he said. "You have to be really careful when things are so close."
A year ago, Evans - who was world champion at the time - lost the yellow jersey and any chance of the race victory after fracturing his elbow. This year he avoided the many crashes of the first week and is now second in the standings, 1 minute, 45 seconds behind Thomas Voeckler of France.
However, Voeckler is likely to lose substantial time to the other contenders in Saturday's time trial and - despite surprising even himself with his achievements so far - it is uncertain whether he can stay with the favourites in the Alps.
Evans is slowly carving out a position as the man to beat in this year's Tour. It's a situation many cycling observers had never expected to see him in again in a major stage race.
"At the end it was a good day for us," said BMC sports director John Lelangue. "We still have a big week in the mountains and a big time trial to go, so everything is open."
