While nine of our guys battle it out in the gruelling Giro d'Italia, some eyes will be focused on the West coast of the USA as one of our biggest races of the season gets going, the Tour of California. All of the American teams will be out in force as they look for prestigious wins for the sponsors. BMC Racing Team send five Americans over the Atlantic along with young Dane Lander to try to pick up some much needed results.
Sebastian Lander Jordan Lewis Taylor Phinney Jeremy Powers Tejay Van Garderen Larry Warbasse
Manager of Bunzl - Centrica
ICL's World Tour Champions and Talented Bottlers
This race was a disaster for us. Nothing else. Van Avermaet tried to do what he had done in Flanders with an attack a long way from the finish. However, Chavanel joined him a bit later and then the Belgian seemed to forget what he was there for as he rapidly dropped back before finishing last in the sprint of the favourites to get 17th place, one ahead of Gilbert, who was completely anonymous in one of his favourite races.
Result - De Brabantse Pijl
1
Kevin Hulsmans
Vini Fantini - Selle Italia
4h45'54
2
Maxime Vantomme
Crelan - Euphony
+ 1'44
3
Sven Vandousselaere
Topsport Vlaanderen - Baloise
s.t.
4
Aleksejs Saramotins
IAM Cycling
s.t.
5
Peter Sagan
Cannondale Pro Cycling
+ 2'07
6
Davy Commeyne
Accent Jobs - Wanty
+ 2'15
7
Staf Scheirlinckx
Accent Jobs - Wanty
+ 2'25
8
Nick Nuyens
Garmin - Sharp
+ 3'08
9
Sylvain Chavanel
Omega Pharma - Quick·Step
s.t.
10
Jürgen Roelandts
Lotto Belisol
+ 3'41
...
17
Greg Van Avermaet
BMC Racing Team
+ 3'51
18
Philippe Gilbert
BMC Racing Team
+ 5'33
45
Michael Schär
BMC Racing Team
+ 16'44
100
Marcus Burghardt
BMC Racing Team
+ 17'09
119
Klaas Lodewyck
BMC Racing Team
s.t.
123
Amaël Moinard
BMC Racing Team
s.t.
129
Jeremy Powers
BMC Racing Team
s.t.
This race was the final chance for Evans to get some climbing form for the first Grand Tour of the year next month. The small team we sent certainly didn't help in the TTT but I even if we'd won it, Cadel would have been nowhere near the top three here as Nibali, Rodriguez and Contador put days between themselves and the rest.
Evans finished around tenth on every road stage and finished seventh overall, nearly nine minutes down on the winner Nibali. A really worrying result with the Giro just around the corner and a top five needed. Santaromita got into one breakaway but nothing was heard of the rest of the team until the unfortunate Nerz crashed on the final stage and completely destroyed what had been a good race for him up to that point.
Result - Giro del Trentino
1
Vincenzo Nibali
Astana Pro Team
17h44'56
2
Joaquím Rodríguez
Katusha Team
+ 23
3
Alberto Contador
Team Saxo - Tinkoff
+ 59
4
Leopold König
Team NetApp - Endura
+ 7'34
5
Beñat Intxausti
Movistar Team
+ 8'02
6
Jean-Christophe Peraud
AG2R La Mondiale
+ 8'37
7
Cadel Evans
BMC Racing Team
+ 8'48
8
Franco Pellizotti
Androni Giocattoli - Venezuela
+ 9'07
9
Domenico Pozzovivo
AG2R La Mondiale
+ 9'43
10
Ivan Basso
Cannondale Pro Cycling
+ 9'59
...
41
Ivan Santaromita
BMC Racing Team
+ 22'23
45
Amaël Moinard
BMC Racing Team
+ 23'45
71
Dominik Nerz
BMC Racing Team
+ 37'04
82
Yannick Eijssen
BMC Racing Team
+ 42'45
127
Larry Warbasse
BMC Racing Team
+ 1h04'05
A race without any goals for the team but one where we hoped some of our 'lesser' riders would take the rare chance to shine. Except for a solid ride by Burghardt which saw him finish 14th on the GC, and some minor promise shown by Lodewyck, this was another anonymous race for the team. Nothing to say, let's move on.
Result - 4 Jours de Dunkerque
1
Thomas Voeckler
Team Europcar
19h14'37
2
Davide Rebellin
CCC Polsat - Polkowice
+ 2
3
Rajesh Kakhi
Champion System Pro Cycling Team
+ 6
4
Jürgen Roelandts
Lotto Belisol
+ 48
5
Edvald Boasson Hagen
Sky Procycling
+ 1'04
6
Rudy Verboven
Euskaltel - Euskadi
+ 1'49
7
Gediminas Bagdonas
AG2R La Mondiale
s.t.
8
Florian Vachon
Bretagne - Séché Environnement
+ 1'55
9
Jonathan Hivert
Sojasun
s.t.
10
Matthieu Ladagnous
FDJ.fr
s.t.
...
14
Marcus Burghardt
BMC Racing Team
s.t.
55
Klaas Lodewyck
BMC Racing Team
+ 7'24
58
Michael Schär
BMC Racing Team
s.t.
67
Sebastian Lander
BMC Racing Team
+ 8'36
68
Danilo Wyss
BMC Racing Team
s.t.
76
Adam Blythe
BMC Racing Team
+ 11'10
97
Jeremy Powers
BMC Racing Team
+ 14'42
Manager of Bunzl - Centrica
ICL's World Tour Champions and Talented Bottlers
The Tour de Romandie is one of the biggest races of the season for us and our Swiss sponsor. So we sent a squad full of climbing power and local knowledge. The aim was to get Van Garderen high up on the overall, with support from Lewis, while Frank went on the attack looking for possible stage success.
As it was, none of those things happened, our Swiss riders being completely anonymous and Van Garderen working for Lewis. The neo-pro gave a sterling performance, finishing fourth on two stages to clinch a top ten finish in only his second WorldTour race.
The race concluded with a fifth place for Van Garderen in the time trial that moved him up to 13th overall, but Lewis was certainly the star for BMC in 8th, missing out on the white jersey by just twenty seconds.
The biggest race in the US was always going to be a highlight for us and amidst all the hype and over the top build-up, we were genuinely confident going into the race with our American climbing duo, Lewis and Van Garderen. The race started well enough with Van Garderen losing only a little bit of time on the tough summit finish of stage two. Phinney also picked up a top ten in a bunch sprint the day after.
However, on the fourth stage, it went downhill so quickly, Savoldelli would have struggled to catch us. Van Garderen was caught out in a needless split and a collective lack of brainpower from all the riders meant that this race was over for us already.
There was some minor joy to go with the crippling anger as Van Garderen used all of his frustration to obliterate everyone, even Wiggins and Martin in the time trial and Lewis climbed well up Mount Diablo to move up the GC a bit but this was one of our most disappointing races of the season. And to add insult to injury, we ended up 11th and 12th on the GC. Goal failed, manager upset.
Result - Tour of California
1
Andrew Talansky
Garmin - Sharp
28h57'29
2
Christian De Vries
Champion System Pro Cycling Team
+ 56
3
Chris Horner
RadioShack - Leopard
+ 58
4
Rui Costa
Movistar Team
+ 1'02
5
Bradley Wiggins
Sky Procycling
+ 1'31
6
Leopold König
Team NetApp - Endura
+ 1'42
7
Po-ding Kim
Team Europcar
+ 1'46
8
Peter Sagan
Cannondale Pro Cycling
+ 2'22
9
Peter Velits
Omega Pharma - Quick·Step
+ 3'07
10
Janez Brajkovič
Astana Pro Team
+ 3'26
11
Jordan Lewis
BMC Racing Team
+ 4'43
12
Tejay Van Garderen
BMC Racing Team
+ 6'01
...
60
Larry Warbasse
BMC Racing Team
+ 19'44
79
Taylor Phinney
BMC Racing Team
+ 25'34
94
Sebastian Lander
BMC Racing Team
+ 29'14
121
Jeremy Powers
BMC Racing Team
+ 42'03
The next race for us was the Ronde van Belgie and once again, we had two of the biggest names from the country taking part. Gilbert and Van Avermaet are fan favourites here and would be looking to show their faces once more. Stage 2 had a few cobbles in it and Van Avermaet showed his power with a second place in the bunch sprint, only Thomas, surprisingly, able to beat him.
Unlike in California, our leaders were then able to stay in contention through the next two stages, Gilbert even getting a fifth place in the time trial, to give ourselves a chance on the undulating final stage. The World Champion was incredibly aggressive, probably too aggressive, as his umpteen attacks killed his legs and he could only watch at the end as a group of riders, including compatriot Verboven, beat him to the line. However, a third place finish, behind the ever-consistent Sky duo of Boasson Hagen and Thomas was not a bad result.
Result - Ronde van Belgie
1
Edvald Boasson Hagen
Sky Procycling
16h24'23
2
Geraint Thomas
Sky Procycling
+ 9
3
Philippe Gilbert
BMC Racing Team
+ 17
4
Rajesh Kakhi
Champion System Pro Cycling Team
+ 33
5
Kristof Vandewalle
Omega Pharma - Quick·Step
+ 40
6
Greg Henderson
Lotto Belisol
+ 47
7
Stef Clement
Belkin Pro Cycling Team
+ 54
8
Maxime Vantomme
Crelan - Euphony
+ 58
9
Ian Stannard
Sky Procycling
+ 1'01
10
Kristjan Koren
Cannondale Pro Cycling
+ 1'02
...
12
Greg Van Avermaet
BMC Racing Team
+ 1'05
17
Michael Schär
BMC Racing Team
+ 1'21
36
Sebastian Lander
BMC Racing Team
+ 2'00
38
Danilo Wyss
BMC Racing Team
+ 2'02
87
Klaas Lodewyck
BMC Racing Team
+ 8'49
94
Adam Blythe
BMC Racing Team
+ 8'56
Manager of Bunzl - Centrica
ICL's World Tour Champions and Talented Bottlers
Holy crap, its been way to long since my last entry here so it's time to give you guys a little update.
So The last few weeks have been pretty great for me even if it hasent been great for the team.
Well at la volta a Catalunya I was able to take a nice 11th place on stage 3 which was a very nice confidence booster for me
Then came Romandie where I absolutley came out of my shell and finished 8th in the GC while taking a 4th place on the stage one time trail and another fourth place on stage 6.
With my confidence at it's highest, I showed up to the Tour of California with a goal of getting a top 15 finish. My top 20 finishes on stage 4 & 7 put me 11th on the GC. Dont let me forget Tejay's fantastic stage 6 victory.
Well I guess its been a pretty nice season so far, but with all the nice victories I need to continue to train a take advantage of the form I have at the moment.
The middle part of the season draws to an exciting close with two of the biggest stage races of the season. In South-East France, the Critérium du Dauphiné takes on some Alpine passes as well as a long time trial and lots of hills in what should be a very tough edition. While just over the border, the team take part in yet another home race, the Tour de Suisse. A slightly longer race with a prologue followed by eight stages. Mountains are once again the feature of the race with climbs up Crans-Montana and Albulapass sure to shake up the GC before a tough final, uphill, time trial. Here are our teams for these final tests:
Alessandro Ballan Stephen Cummings Yannick Eijssen Philippe Gilbert Sebastian Lander Jordan Lewis Amael Moinard Tejay Van Garderen
Brent Bookwalter Cadel Evans Matthias Frank Martin Kohler Steve Morabito Dominik Nerz Manuel Quinziato Danilo Wyss
Manager of Bunzl - Centrica
ICL's World Tour Champions and Talented Bottlers
The first Grand Tour of the season and a chance for Cadel Evans to prove his doubters wrong. He did not. The race started very quietly, in fact, anonymously for BMC, with all of our riders just sitting back and waiting, bar a short appearance from Santaromita in the early mountains.
Into the second week and, with Evans already way out of contention for a top five finish, our focus switched to getting a stage win. Cummings the man to try on stage nine. The plan worked but it wasn't executed and Steve had to settle for fourth behind Geschke.
From then on, despite a strong showing from Evans in the next mountain stage, it was all rather more downhill. Cadel lost time here, there and everywhere, while the rest of the team seemed content to just find a grupetto every day and simply make it to Milan. There were little moments of excitement; Santaromita tried again on stage 14 and Bookwalter got into the breakaway on the very last stage but still no top ten finish came.
All in all, this was a shocking performance from the team, with Evans' 9th place finish scant consolation for all of the effort and money put into it. It was so bad, it actually looked like most of the riders wanted to have their contracts cancelled. And I'm sure we can come to some sort of agreement on that in a few months time.
Result - Giro d'Italia
1
Vincenzo Nibali
Astana Pro Team
84h44'43
2
Carlos Betancur
AG2R La Mondiale
+ 6'34
3
Richie Porte
Sky Procycling
+ 8'38
4
Nairo Quintana
Movistar Team
+ 10'31
5
Roman Kreuziger
Team Saxo - Tinkoff
+ 12'01
6
Ryder Hesjedal
Garmin - Sharp
+ 12'45
7
Michele Scarponi
Lampre - Merida
+ 16'53
8
Robert Kiserlovski
RadioShack - Leopard
+ 22'00
9
Cadel Evans
BMC Racing Team
+ 22'18
10
Franco Pellizotti
Androni Giocattoli - Venezuela
+ 22'55
...
35
Ivan Santaromita
BMC Racing Team
+ 53'21
72
Brent Bookwalter
BMC Racing Team
+ 1h41'35
75
Stephen Cummings
BMC Racing Team
+ 1h52'27
83
Marco Pinotti
BMC Racing Team
+ 2h07'53
88
Yannick Eijssen
BMC Racing Team
+ 2h14'28
114
Daniel Oss
BMC Racing Team
+ 2h47'04
146
Manuel Quinziato
BMC Racing Team
+ 3h26'33
171
Martin Kohler
BMC Racing Team
+ 4h03'55
Manager of Bunzl - Centrica
ICL's World Tour Champions and Talented Bottlers
The traditional preparation race for the Tour de France gave Van Garderen and Lewis one last chance to perfect their climbing ahead of their big target. With no prologue or flat stages to start the race off, the battles begun immediately. The first stage saw an amazing solo ride from Amador that enabled him to keep the yellow jersey for most of the week, but on the second stage, a late attack by Gilbert dropped all the others and he took a magnificent stage win, his first in the rainbow stripes.
Then came the Individual Time Trial, very important for Tejay to get himself into contention ahead of the mountains. He claimed a solid fifth place finish, way behind Froome but not losing any significant time to the humans. Unfortunately, Lewis had a poor ride and would now have to work for Tejay in the mountains. And work he did. He put in a big shift on stage five to keep escapees in order and put Tejay near the front on the final climb. This meant he made the key split that caught out Contador amongst others and, despite a poor finishing position of 24th, he kept his top 10 place overall.
Stage six returned to flatter terrain and after getting himself into the successful breakaway, Ballan came agonisingly close to the stage win, just being pipped on the line by Rabottini. After that, it was back into the mountains. Stage seven went well for BMC, except for Tejay losing a minute to Kangert, which was a bit disastrous. This meant he dropped out of the top five and would have to do something brilliant to get back up there. Unfortunately, he couldn't manage it as he finished in a massive group two minutes behind the winner, Froome, on the final stage. However, unseen to many, Amador had been well dropped on the final climb, so Tejay did move up to fifth overall, just seven seconds behind the fourth place finisher. A much, much better race for us and we can only hope the Tour de France goes as well as this.
Result - Critérium du Dauphiné Due to Admin errors, full results aren't available.
1
Chris Froome
-
2
Michal Kwiatkowski
+ 6'17
3
Tanel Kangert
s.t.
4
Pierre De la Montagne
+ 7'16
5
Tejay Van Garderen
+ 7'23
...
30
Jordan Lewis
+ 14'16
62
Amael Moinard
+ 22'39
88
Stephen Cummings
+ 32'44
91
Philippe Gilbert
+ 35'01
100
Yannick Eijssen
+ 42'21
119
Alessandro Ballan
+ 53'36
163
Sebastian Lander
+ 1h29'55
Manager of Bunzl - Centrica
ICL's World Tour Champions and Talented Bottlers
One of the most important races of the season for our Swiss sponsor, the Tour de Suisse was the final race of this part of the season. It gave Cadel Evans one more chance to do something useful but he somehow managed to hit a new low. A quiet start for the team saw both Evans and Nerz finish in the top ten on the third stage, with Evans sitting just inside the top 10 overall after the tough first three stages.
Stage four saw an attack by Bookwalter as the American joined two others in the breakaway. Unfortunately, Brent just wasn't able to stay with them and was caught by the peloton, though all the escapees were caught in the end. We unforgivably missed the breakaway on the next couple of stages as they made it to the finish. Stage seven was another mountain stage and Evans moved up a position to ninth after a solid ride.
Stage eight was the final road stage and after a stern telling off, the team knew they needed to do more. So it was no surprise that Nerz was the first attacker of the day. But just when we thought the race was getting better, Evans crashed on a descent and got injured, forcing him to pull out of the race from a top ten position. Funnily enough, the successful breakaway by Nerz moved him straight up to where Evans had been, ninth overall!
Unfortunately Dominik could only finish fourth as a late attack by Piedra saw him take the stage win. In the final, uphill time trial, Nerz lost just enough time to miss out on the top 10 as we claimed yet another 11th place finish. Such a shame for the young German but in truth, we didn't do enough to deserve anything from the race and with Frank and Morabito's continued allergy to attacking, we're really struggling in the mountains. Not good enough once again.
Result - Tour de Suisse
1
Joaquím Rodríguez
Katusha Team
31h55'18
2
Vincenzo Nibali
Astana Pro Team
+ 29
3
Nairo Quintana
Movistar Team
+ 36
4
Ryder Hesjedal
Garmin - Sharp
+ 4'06
5
Roman Kreuziger
Team Saxo - Tinkoff
+ 4'38
6
Richie Porte
Sky Procycling
+ 5'06
7
Carlos Betancur
AG2R La Mondiale
+ 6'09
8
Michele Scarponi
Lampre - Merida
+ 8'27
9
Oreste Ghita
Team Argos - Shimano
+ 9'28
10
Cristiano De las Campos
Euskaltel - Euskadi
+ 10'23
11
Dominik Nerz
BMC Racing Team
+ 10'30
...
21
Steve Morabito
BMC Racing Team
+ 12'57
31
Matthias Frank
BMC Racing Team
+ 15'40
51
Brent Bookwalter
BMC Racing Team
+ 32'25
109
Manuel Quinziato
BMC Racing Team
+ 55'32
110
Danilo Wyss
BMC Racing Team
+ 55'42
154
Martin Kohler
BMC Racing Team
+ 1h06'17
-
Cadel Evans
BMC Racing Team
DNF
Manager of Bunzl - Centrica
ICL's World Tour Champions and Talented Bottlers
BMC will be awarding several very prestigious* trophies at the end of each part of the season. Here are the second BMC EPIC Awards:
*Still are. I promise.
BMC Awards
BMC Best Rider - Greg Van Avermaet - Didn't have too many racedays in this period of the season but his classics performances can not go unrewarded. 1st at De Ronde and 4th at Paris Roubaix to go with the earlier results mean Greg is by far our biggest points scorer. Gilbert and Van Garderen also deserve a mention, while Lewis really proved he has what it takes in the last couple of months.
BMC Best Young Rider - Tejay Van Garderen - 5th in the Dauphiné, as well as wins in the American ITT Championship and Tour of California ITT get Tejay the award. Bad luck in America and a disappointing Romandie were overcome by a strong June. Lewis and Nerz weren't too far behind.
BMC Best Individual Performance - Greg Van Avermaet, Ronde van Vlaanderen - No words needed. Just find that wonderful report again and read in disbelief.
BMC Most Consistent Rider - Cadel Evans - It takes real skill to pick where you're going to finish before a race starts and get it every day. Cadel's liking for 11th place is spreading throughout the team now as his influence is strong on the young riders.
BMC Best Domestique - Michael Schär - Always there, no matter what race, terrain or situation, Schär is a rider most teams would like to have. He might have no individual results yet but his relentless riding and fantastic attitude means all of the leaders are happy to see him alongside them.
BMC "Oh, He's Racing?" Anonymity Award - Steve Morabito - Seriously, Steve, you're in the team to go for it in the mountains every now and again. Please?
BMC "Must Try Harder" Award - Martin Kohler - He was worse than useless in the Giro (as were most of the team) but he was still miles ahead of the Lanterne Rouge, which is disappointing. If you're going to be shit, be really shit please.
EPIC Awards
Best Rider - Vincenzo Nibali - Nibbles came to life in this last few months, with wins in Trentino and, of course, the Giro, by over six minutes. A great ride in Suisse was affected by an early crash but he still recovered to almost beat Rodriguez.
Best Young Rider - Nairo Quintana - A tough call but Nairo was right up there in Suisse and would have offered a much greater challenge to Nibali in the Giro had he not been isolated on seemingly every non-mountain stage.
Best Team - Astana - Not just Nibali has been getting results for the greatest Kazakh team since Borat and Azamat. Kangert and Fuglsang have been riding strongly as well, thus they win the award despite their classics team, which is average at best.
Best Individual Performance - Greg Van Avermaet, Ronde van Vlaanderen - Maybe you think I'm biased, but really, you're blind if you don't think this was one of the greatest rides of our generation. There were others, particularly Amador in the Dauphiné, that stood out, but none could rival Greg's glorious day.
Best EPIC Young Rider - Po-ding Kim - Okay, this one was extremely difficult. Our EPIC riders struggled a bit in this season part as the big boys really hit their form. The likes of Hanzen, De Vries, McDermott, Kakhi, De La Montagne and even our very own Lewis came close but Kim's consistent points scoring, particularly against the clock, means Our Glorious Leader isn't the only one with awards in Pyongyang.
Best EPIC Manager - Shonak. Case closed.
Biggest Surprise - Too difficult to decide. There are so many contenders: Hulsmans winning De Brabantse Pijl, Cervero getting a result, Horner forgetting his dope in California, Jesleyh making Kelderman crash, twice. I can't decide. All I know is, the least surprising result was Nerz missing out on the top 10 in Suisse by less than ten seconds...
The "Whoops!" Award - Shared: nacho63 and Marcovdw - Because of course you'd send your top sprinter to a race with no flat stages. Eight useful racedays there chaps
The "WTF?!" Award - San Marinese National Championships - Just, what?!
Fan Vote
Most EPIC Performance
Here's your chance to have a say on the awards, just like last time. The fan award is for the most EPIC performance. Only EPIC (custom) riders are eligible for this award. You can vote for 3 performances by EPIC riders, with your number 1 getting 3 points, down to 1 point for your third favourite. You can't vote for your own rider, nor can you vote for an EPIC rider in your team.
So, what was the best individual performance by a young EPIC rider during the second part of the season? PM me with your three favourite individual performances by an EPIC rider. If you can't think of three, then one or two will do.
If you're struggling to think of any, then maybe you can ask your friends or parents or, better still, pay more attention, you uninterested bastard. But why would you be reading this if you don't care about EPIC?
Manager of Bunzl - Centrica
ICL's World Tour Champions and Talented Bottlers
Some interesting awards there. I especially second the "Whoops"-Award. That sprinter course. Much wow. Such pleasure to watch.
And it is cool that Nairo Quintana gets honored with Best Young Rider even after that Giro. I'm looking forward to the Tour where he has the best possible support with domestiques like Valverde or the allmighty Maxime Oget who will be of great help on the cobbled mountains.
I have some questions here. you say it like it's easy desision but I feel like Silvio did better. the gap between the two teams is Minimal (two points) and NetApp is a much better team then Champion System. just my two cents Edited by SSJ2Luigi on 13-07-2014 00:05
BMC Racing Team can now confirm the signing of young Polish talent Damian Owniak for the final part of the 2013 season. The 22 year old from Gdansk impressed the management with his powerful riding style and positive, hard-working attitude.
Damian is mainly a climber but is very strong all round, including a potential race-winning sprint from a smaller group. Damian will no doubt be looking to impress at his home race, where he will make his professional debut. There is also the potential for a Grand Tour debut later in the season but that is yet to be decided.
We welcome Damian to the team and we are sure he will get on fine with the rest of the team.
Manager of Bunzl - Centrica
ICL's World Tour Champions and Talented Bottlers
Sebastian Lander
Jordan Lewis
Kevin Hulsmans
Aleksejs Saramotins
Peter Sagan
Sylvain Chavanel
Michael Schär
Marcus Burghardt
Vincenzo Nibali
Joaquím Rodríguez
Leopold König
Cadel Evans
Rajesh Kakhi
Edvald Boasson Hagen
Gediminas Bagdonas
Adam Blythe
Tanel Kangert
Wilco Kelderman
Ryder Hesjedal
Po-ding Kim
Rui Costa
Janez Brajkovič
Greg Henderson
Carlos Betancur
Robert Kiserlovski
Michal Kwiatkowski
Oreste Ghita
