Cadel Evans sealed victory in the 2011 Tour de France after a trouble-free final stage to Paris that saw Mark Cavendish take his third consecutive sprint win on the Champs-Élysées.

In the finishing sprint, Cavendish enjoyed a fine lead-out from his HTC-Highroad squad across the Place de la Concorde.

Cadel Evans is set to become the first Australian winner of the Tour de France after overcoming his overnight deficit to Andy Schleck in the penultimate stage time trial Saturday.

BMC leader Evans started the 42.5km race against the clock with a 57-second deficit to Schleck in the overall standings but easily erased that on his way to second place behind stage winner Tony Martin of Germany. Last years winner Alberto Contador had a strong ride for third in the stage.

World champion Thor Hushovd took over the Tour de France yellow jersey from Belgian Philippe Gilbert as Garmin-Cervelo triumphed for the first time on the race’s second stage on Sunday.

Hushovd’s Garmin team, one of the favourites for the 23km team time trial, set a winning time of 24min 48sec for the punishing event to beat the BMC team of Australia’s Cadel Evans into second place by 4sec.

Cadel Evans has admitted he has taken a laid-back approach to the 2011 cycling season, although it is all part of his bigger plans to get back in contention for victory at the Tour de France.

Evans finished runner-up in the three week epic in 2007 and 2008, but has failed to challenge for the race’s coveted yellow jersey in the past two years.

Cadel Evans will not ride in his home ProTour event, the Tour Down Under, which takes place next month in South Australia. He is reportedly going to focus all his energies on winning an elusive Tour de France title. Team BMC’s 2011 lineup will be headed by 2008 world champion Alessandro Ballan of Italy and includes riders from six countries.

The host country for the 2010 edition of the UCI’s main event is Australia, one of the world’s great cycling nations. This is due to the growing success of the Tour Down Under, the UCI ProTour’s opening event, as well as the exploits of the best Aussies – in particular Cadel Evans and Jack Bobridge. Oceana is only the fourth continent the Road World champs has visited since its inception in 1927. The other three continents are Europe, America and Asia.

Cadel Evans was close to tears as he sat on the steps of the BMC team bus and tried to explain what had happened during his miserable stage 9 of the Tour de France. Evans was still wearing the yellow jersey but finished eight minutes behind Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador and admitted that his chances of victory in the Tour were now over.