Tour de France’s runner-up, Cadel Evans from Australia, who ranked second in the overall points standing behind Spaniard Carlos Sastre, may still take part in the 2008 Beijing Olympic time trial after Australia received a wild card for the event.

Evans injured his knee at the end of July after slipping on a wet floor at a Tour de France after party and was ruled out of competing.

However, the Australian Olympic Committee was “ready to allocate a place to the rider after receiving confirmation of the extra place and Australian national performance director Shayne Bannan contacted Evans to inform him of the changes this week,” telegraph.co.uk reported on August 4.

Evans was included in Australia’s original list as the sole participant but after the injury he offered up his position to three-time time trial world champion Michael Rogers.

“For the time trial there’s no hiding and every day that I miss training is seconds and therefore places in the result,” the newspaper quoted Evans as saying. “I wouldn’t want to deprive Mick of an opportunity to do what is our best chance to get a result for the team.”

“Shayne Bannan called me with the news. He said we've got that second place […] But let’s see how it goes and first concentrate on getting my knee better and see if I’m worthy of going for the road race and seeing if I can be good enough for the road race […] I don't want to go unless I can do a good result for myself and the team or contribute to a good result for the team, so if I don’t recover from my injury and am not close to my best, I don't mind staying at home,” Evans said.

Australian Olympic team media director Mike Tancred said that the team was confident of getting Evans to the starting line “in good enough shape for him to challenge for the podium.”

Meanwhile, foxsports.com.au quoted Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates as saying that although Evans was an outspoken pro-Tibet supporter, he would respect the Olympic rules and refrain from protesting at Games venues.