"Not in [my] wildest dreams" would he imagine that his son would become a top world athlete. Career Mountain biking career Evans started his international career in 1995 as a Scholarship-holder in the Australian Institute of Sport mountain bike (MTB) Program, under A.I.S. Cycling Program's MTB coach Damian Grundy, and up to 1998 under road coach Heiko Salzwedel. While Evans was at the Australian Institute of Sport, physiological tests showed he possessed a rare combination – an unusually high lung volume and the capacity to absorb more oxygen from each breath than 99.9 per cent of the population. This ability led to him becoming known as 'The Lung'. Evans won bronze medals at the 1995 Junior world mountain bike championship and Junior world road time trial championship, and silver medals at the 1997 and 1999 under-23 world championships. He won the cross-country event in the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup in both 1998 and 1999. In 1998 Shayne Bannan was the under-23 road cycling coach based in Italy. In 1997, he rode for the Diamondback MTB team, and then for the Volvo–Cannondale MTB team. In March 2017, Evans was back on a mountain bike and competing in the Masters category at the eight-day Cape Epic stage race in South Africa over . The race, held in a two-person team format saw Evans partner George Hincapie – his domestique at the 2011 Tour de France – and they won the category. Switch to road cycling Cadel Evans had a breakthrough road cycling performance at the 1999 Tour of Tasmania, where commentator Phil Liggett famously proclaimed that Evans would win the Tour de France one day. It was not until 2001, however, that Evans officially made the switch to road cycling and joined the team. He spent one year with in 2001 and another year with in 2002 before two years with (2003–2004). Other early successes included overall wins in the 2001 and 2004 editions of the Tour of Austria, 14th in the 2002 Giro d'Italia (he wore the general classification leader's pink jersey for one day), Commonwealth Games time trial champion in 2002 and a stage win of the 2002 Tour Down Under. At Mapei, he was coached by Aldo Sassi, who helped him make the transition from mountain biker to grand tourer. After Sassi's death from cancer in 2010, Evans continued cooperation with his protege Andrea Morelli. After winning the