Cadel Evans (BMC) has equalled the WorldTour ranking points total of Paris-Nice winner Tony Martin (HTC-Highroad) to take the lead of the sport's top competition.
The Australian edged the German from the number one position by netting 108 points for winning Tirreno-Adriatico (100 points) with one stage win (6 points) and a third place on stage 4 to Chieto (2 points).
Martin earned the same tally, with 100 points for the Paris-Nice overall, 6 for his time trial stage win and one each for a fourth and fifth place stage finish.
Tie-breaking rules count the number of placings to determine the winner, making Evans the world number one. The honour was a surprise for Evans, who in 2007 won the UCI's ProTour overall classification, but he indicated it was too soon to target another overall victory.
"With the low key start to my season, I would not have predicted this, but I might have hoped for it," said Evans. "It's still early, though. Let's have a look at the rankings again in August or September."
After wrapping up the overall win in Italy, Evans reflected on the final time trial on his personal web page, www.cadelevans.com.au, noting the improvement of Rabobank's Robert Gesink, who climbed to second overall and went four seconds quicker over the 9.3km course.
"Gesink seems to have improved his time trialing to another level this year, and today he proved it again. I was ok, took me 2-3km to get into my rhythm, having eight months since my last 'crono', not surprising, but a bit of a worry when you only have 6km to make for lost time. My TT legs eventually got into gear, enough to hold onto my GC position, and happily get one of pitch fork trophies."
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