By Rupert Guinness

June 13 - THE cycling star Cadel Evans has stepped up his support for Tibet by creating a fund-raising scheme that could put him under scrutiny from the Chinese Government at the Olympic Games in Beijing.

Evans is poised to start selling specially made T-shirts emblazoned with "Free Tibet" to raise funds for the organisation behind the cause.

The outspoken cyclist will try to become the first Australian to win the three-week Tour de France starting on July 5. He already has the Free Tibet organisation link on his website, has approved the use of a photo of him wearing a "Free Tibet" T-shirt on the Australian edition of the official Tour de France guide and he sponsors a Tibetan child.

"It is something I have felt strongly about for a while. It is an idea I had for a while," Evans told the Herald from France, where he competed yesterday in his final Tour lead-up race, the Dauphine Libere stage.

"Trying to bring awareness of the Tibet movement is something someone in my position can do. I just feel really sorry for them. They don't harm anyone and they are getting their culture taken away from them.

"I don't want to see a repeat of what happened to Aboriginal culture [in Australia] happen to another culture."

Evans, 31, is the only known Australian athlete to have taken such a strong public stand on the Tibet issue. His latest initiative is being made public close to the Tour, which has an estimated daily television and roadside audience of 1 billion people and ends 11 days before the Games begin on August 8.

Evans has worn the specially designed undershirts emblazoned with "Free Tibet" under his Silence-Lotto team jersey during races this season, but it was not until the Liege-Bastogne-Liege one-day classic in Belgium on April 27 that his stand earned attention.

The controversial T-shirt came to light after Evans unzipped his trade team jersey to relieve the heat while ascending one of the many steep Ardennes climbs in the Belgian race in which he placed seventh.

Since then Evans has joined forces with his Belgian team's sponsor, to produce the same T-shirts with a view to them being put on sale shortly to raise funds and awareness of the matter through sales.

"It is something we are working on behind the scenes," Evans said. "It is a nice way to try and bring awareness to an issue that I feel is important in the world."

Evans, who will fly to Beijing a week after the 3500-kilometre, three-week Tour finishes in Paris on July 27, said he realised his campaign could attract extra scrutiny during the Olympics, where he is scheduled to race in the road events.

He says he will not breach protocols of the International or Australian Olympic committees. But when asked if he expects his stand to bring extra scrutiny in Beijing, he said: "It might, yeah, but there are obviously certain rules when you go to the Olympics that you have to abide by. I am not one to break any rules. I am a very law-abiding person. I don't have any intentions of upsetting anyone there."

When asked if he would wear a Free Tibet T-shirt in Beijing, he said: "I don't think they would allow it somehow."

Under the IOC Olympic Charter no kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted at any Olympic site, venue or other area. This extends to "the conduct of participants including but not limited to their look, external appearance, clothing, gestures and written or oral statements".

The AOC supports the IOC, but it has dropped the ban on athletes from talking to media about anything other than their performances.

At the end of the year, Evans and his Italian wife, Chiara, hope to visit the Tibetan child they sponsor.

The trip should be less hazardous than the one taken by the person whose story inspired Evans's passion for the country and its people, the fictitious Tintin created by the Belgian cartoonist Herge.

In Tibet, the junior reporter goes to Nepal and Tibet in search of his Chinese friend Chang Chong-Chen, who he believes was in a plane crash. After he finds Chong-Chen, they meet Buddhist monks from the Khor-Biyong monastery.

Tintin became the first fictional recipient of the Dalai Lama's Light of Truth award on June 1, 2006.

Evans says the story, first published in 1960, "got me interested and really aware of the Dalai Lama situation, and reading about Buddhism and so on. I respect [the Dalai Lama] a lot and feel he has been very unfairly treated."

Told the spiritual leader is in Australia, Evans said: "Say g'day for me. If there is one person I would like to meet it is him."