Evelyn Stevens

Evelyn Stevens was working 50 hour weeks on Wall Street, trying to stay in shape by running when she could squeeze it in. On Sunday, August 9th, the 26-year-old former college tennis player began the Route de France, a six-day race that draws some of the world's top female cyclists. And here's the part nobody, not even Stevens, could have imagined just a few months ago: She might just win!

I suspect that Evelyn Stevens is blessed with a high VO2 max, that determining factor in how well her lungs and heart work to get oxygen to her working muscles. Being a virtual newcomer she hasn’t been submitted to a lot of testing but the ones she has done show she has an unusual amount of leg power for someone so small(120 pounds) and so inexperienced.Her light weight and high power output allow her to climb uphill faster than anyone she's faced so far.

She has been involved in athletics for some time. After playing college tennis at Dartmouth and landing a job at investment bank Lehman Brothers in New York, Stevens says she was content to leave sports behind. Her exhausting schedule left her with barely enough time for that occasional run. But in November of 2007 her sister and brother-in-law persuaded her to try a cyclocross race, an muddy hybrid between mountain and road biking.