A five day race through the tough terrain of Western Belgium, the Tour de Wallonie offers another chance for Van Avermaet to lead the team in search of a stage win and good GC placing. While Blythe will go for any bunch sprints that come up, the rest of the team will be primarily concerned with helping Greg to success.
Adam Blythe Yannick Eijssen Sebastian Lander Klaas Lodewyck Daniel Oss Jeremy Powers Greg Van Avermaet Danilo Wyss
The World Tour returns to some sort of normality after the chaos of the Tour de France with the Basque one-day race around San Sebastian. The route has always favoured the puncheurs in good shape, usually returning from France, so Gilbert was the obvious choice to lead. Van Garderen, Van Avermaet and Evans also feature in a strong team.
Marcus Burghardt Cadel Evans Matthias Frank Philippe Gilbert Daniel Oss Ivan Santaromita Greg Van Avermaet Tejay Van Garderen
The Tour de Pologne is next on the agenda and this year starts in the mountains of Italy, naturally. The week-long stage race finishes with an ITT, which adds a new dimension to the race this year. BMC will be led by debutant Damian Owniak in his home country (after we get back from Italy, that is). Blythe and Hushovd will be free to go for the sprints and Pinotti will once again hope to do well in the ITT as he did in Austria.
Adam Blythe Thor Hushovd Klaas Lodewyck Amael Moinard Damian Owniak Marco Pinotti
The final race in this busy fortnight is the RideLondon Classic in Britain. An almost certain sprinter's race but with a few tough climbs halfway through, BMC will have two Brits riding on home soil in Blythe and Cummings, while Ballan also participates to maybe try out his attacking legs late in the race.
Alessandro Ballan Adam Blythe Marcus Burghardt Stephen Cummings Martin Kohler Klaas Lodewyck Amael Moinard Jeremy Powers
Manager of Bunzl - Centrica
ICL's World Tour Champions and Talented Bottlers
brewers90 wrote:
Well, our fans know he's not very good but the neutrals, well, they love him. True fan favourite. Don't you know Danger is his middle name?
Yes,go Powers
The user formerly known as 'The Schleck Fan' Gracias Alberto.
The biggest race on the calendar has tended to be a bit of a non-event in recent years. Not this time. BMC were involved in a great race that went right down to the last day. The race started on the beautiful island of Corsica and though both Hushovd and Gilbert came close, we returned to the mainland with nothing to show for our efforts. But on the stage 4 TTT, we really showed our ability, being beaten only by Astana to claim second and move Van Garderen right up into GC contention already.
Another couple of top tens for Hushovd followed in the transitional stages after the TTT, before we hit the Pyrenees on stage eight. Despite shoddy positioning, probably due to inexperience, Tejay fought back really well to re-catch the big names, before being slightly distanced at the very end along with fellow American Chris Horner. This result, coupled, unfortunately, with a successful dangerous breakaway the next day, put Van Garderen in ninth place after the Pyrenees.
However, it was at this point that our race really started, as over the next eight stages, we picked up 10 top ten finishes, including two stage wins. Firstly, on stage 10, Gilbert showed his natural instinct for winning once again, being the last survivor from the early breakaway and holding off Sagan for the win.
The day after, in the long, flat ITT to Mont Saint-Michel, Van Garderen showed his true potential as he smashed everyone to smithereens in his new US Champion's skinsuit, even putting 44 seconds in to Chris Froome to move up to second overall. Lewis also showed well with a tenth place.
Two more 8th place finishes for Hushovd followed in the North of France before we hit the hills on stage 14. There, despite Philippe trying everything to shake off the ever-present Slovakian, Sagan got his revenge for stage 10 and beat Gilbert to the line after they went away together late on.
A disastrous stage to the top of the Ventoux was next, where Van Garderen lost any hope of holding on for a podium finish, losing the best part of nine minutes to Quintana and moving down to tenth overall. The only consolation was that almost everybody lost a stupid amount of time and, indeed, Tejay still finished in the top ten, even though he was nine minutes down on the winner! The next day, Ballan made it in to the successful breakaway and finished third, behind Hinault and Peeters.
Van Garderen's little blip continued on the stage 17 ITT, where despite being the favourite for the win, he could only manage ninth, thirty seconds behind the winner, Nibali. Fortunately, Lewis had a stormer of a day once again (boy, does this guy like time trials!) and took a fantastic fourth place, just ten seconds off the podium. Now, with the Alps looming, Tejay was up to ninth again, having displaced surprise contender, Niemiec.
In some epic weather (though not quite as epic as in the Giro), the peloton took on the Alpe d'Huez twice on stage 18. There's not much to say from our point of view. Once again, poor positioning saw TVG miss the key move and he had to limit his losses as he rode in alone to 11th place, though with Voeckler predictably exploding, he actually moved up a position to 8th overall.
The less said about the last three stages, the better. On a weird stage 19, a bunch sprint after a million mountains saw nothing really change. And on the final mountain stage, a poor performance by Tejay fortunately went unpunished and he maintained his 8th position on the GC. And, just when you thought this race had given you everything, a breakaway took the win on the Champs-Elysees, where Hushovd was anonymous for the first time in a sprint, after a very good race for the veteran.
All in all, a very successful race for us, especially the second week, and two stage wins at the biggest race in the world should not be sniffed at. Van Garderen faded badly at the end but still easily completed our top ten goal, whilst also claiming third in the Young Riders' classification. Added to that, Gilbert, Lewis, Hushovd and Ballan all picked up great individual results. The only slight disappointments are Moinard, who should really have been going for a breakaway in the final week, and Phinney, who never really showed his face at all.
Result - Tour de France
1
Chris Froome
Sky Procycling
81h00'58
2
Nairo Quintana
Movistar Team
+ 1'19
3
Vincenzo Nibali
Astana Pro Team
+ 5'50
4
Alberto Contador
Team Saxo - Tinkoff
+ 7'42
5
Alejandro Valverde
Movistar Team
+ 7'49
6
Chris Horner
RadioShack - Leopard
+ 11'51
7
Michał Kwiatkowski
Omega Pharma - Quick·Step
+ 12'13
8
Tejay Van Garderen
BMC Racing Team
+ 16'10
9
Roman Kreuziger
Team Saxo - Tinkoff
+ 18'05
10
Cameron Meyer
Orica - GreenEdge
+ 18'17
...
46
Jordan Lewis
BMC Racing Team
+ 1h08'20
71
Amaël Moinard
BMC Racing Team
+ 1h52'32
82
Philippe Gilbert
BMC Racing Team
+ 2h10'04
87
Marcus Burghardt
BMC Racing Team
+ 2h18'41
94
Thor Hushovd
BMC Racing Team
+ 2h36'00
95
Alessandro Ballan
BMC Racing Team
+ 2h36'13
118
Taylor Phinney
BMC Racing Team
+ 3h11'58
124
Michael Schär
BMC Racing Team
+ 3h17'37
Manager of Bunzl - Centrica
ICL's World Tour Champions and Talented Bottlers
With impatient managers already looking forward to the 2014 transfers even though the window won't be open for months, BMC Racing Team wish to release a statement announcing our plan for next year and beyond.
BMC's long term plan is to challenge on all terrains with a strong group of domestiques to help one or two leaders in each discipline. We want to, of course, keep a strong American and Swiss core but beyond that, nationality isn't really a problem at our multi-cultural team. Therefore, we will always try to get at least one neo-pro from both of our 'home' countries each season to hopefully ensure a bright future at BMC.
This is how we see our current squad fitting in to our future plans:
Move along, nothing to see here
Philippe Gilbert
Tejay Van Garderen
Greg Van Avermaet
Taylor Phinney
Damian Owniak
Big part of the team but you never know with a fantastic offer
Thor Hushovd
Matthias Frank
Daniel Oss
Dominik Nerz
Adam Blythe
Marcus Burghardt
Michael Schar
Likely to stay but swap deals or good offers will definitely be taken seriously
Ivan Santaromita
Manuel Quinziato
Steve Morabito
Stephen Cummings
Brent Bookwalter
Amael Moinard
Klaas Lodewyck
All offers will be listened to
Cadel Evans
Marco Pinotti
Danilo Wyss
Martin Kohler
Larry Warbasse
Definitely leaving
Alessandro Ballan (unavailable, don't get your hopes up)
Jordan Lewis (again, not going to happen for anyone interested)
Yannick Eijssen
Sebastian Lander
The Jeremy Powers group
Jeremy Powers
As mentioned above, American and Swiss riders are always welcomed here, so a swap deal involving riders of those nationalities would always suit us better and would make us more likely to accept. We look forward to doing business with all of you when the time comes.
Manager of Bunzl - Centrica
ICL's World Tour Champions and Talented Bottlers
We went to Belgium hoping for a stage win so the GC was never really an aim despite having the media's number one favourite for the race, Greg Van Avermaet in our team. Typically, though, when we have aimed for stage wins this season, everything has gone against us and that again happened here. Van Avermaet was in the top ten three times, while Blythe sprinted to fifth on stage four.
Our highlight, if you can call it that, was stage five though, where, after controlling the entire stage to give Greg the chance of victory, he didn't go for it and simply followed the ever reliable Daniel Oss to the line as they both finished in the top five. Not good enough again, goal failed.
This race was another disaster, results-wise at least. The positive was an expected attack by Ballan near the end but he went too early and was caught even before the morning breakaway, who somehow made it all the way to the line where home favourite Luke Rowe took a big win for Sky. Another Brit, Adam Blythe was our best finisher but he couldn't even make the top 20. Fortunately, we came with no goals, only dreams. Which were crushed.
Our first one-day race since Liege-Bastogne-Liege three months ago saw the team take on the Clasica San Sebastian in the Basque Country. We sent arguably the strongest team possible with both Evans and Van Garderen to assist the Belgian duo Gilbert and Van Avermaet in whatever possible way.
The team rode very well early on, helping other teams to keep the breakaway within reach, Oss and Burghardt in particular putting in the effort. As the big attacks came later on, Gilbert was always with them and he is hard to miss in his bright white rainbow jersey! Eventually, only Sagan, Rodriguez and Quintana could stay with Philippe until one final attack with 10km to go, dropped the Spaniard and the Colombian.
As he has been for the last year or two, Sagan just proved impossible to shake off and unsurprisingly he won the sprint to win the race, though not by the margin and ease you would have expected. Gilbert, nevertheless, was happy with second in such a tough race. The rest of the team were well back after sitting up when Gilbert went away. Van Avermaet was the first rider from the 'peloton', in 26th place, over eleven minutes down.
Result - Clasica San Sebastian
1
Peter Sagan
Cannondale Pro Cycling
5h49'47
2
Philippe Gilbert
BMC Racing Team
s.t.
3
JoaquÃm RodrÃguez
Katusha Team
+ 1'06
4
Alejandro Valverde
Movistar Team
s.t.
5
Luis León Sánchez
Belkin Pro Cycling Team
s.t.
6
Jorge Cristobal Riquelme
Belkin Pro Cycling Team
s.t.
7
Nairo Quintana
Movistar Team
s.t.
8
Simon Gerrans
Orica - GreenEdge
s.t.
9
Rajesh Kakhi
Champion System Pro Cycling Team
s.t.
10
Edvald Boasson Hagen
Sky Procycling
s.t.
...
26
Greg Van Avermaet
BMC Racing Team
+ 11'14
38
Cadel Evans
BMC Racing Team
+ 15'59
58
Ivan Santaromita
BMC Racing Team
s.t.
69
Tejay Van Garderen
BMC Racing Team
s.t.
86
Daniel Oss
BMC Racing Team
s.t.
124
Matthias Frank
BMC Racing Team
s.t.
150
Marcus Burghardt
BMC Racing Team
s.t.
Manager of Bunzl - Centrica
ICL's World Tour Champions and Talented Bottlers
Well, this race has already started so not much point previewing it. The last couple of stages are the big target for our strong team with Gilbert and Van Avermaet leading us.
Alessandro Ballan Marcus Burghardt Philippe Gilbert Klaas Lodewyck Daniel Oss Taylor Phinney Manuel Quinziato Greg Van Avermaet
The team return to America for the USA Pro Cycling Challenge in the high mountains of Colorado. After a very disappointing Tour of California, we have a lot to do to keep our American fans happy. We also have a goal of a top seven finish, which Tejay Van Garderen should be able to achieve without too much effort. Of course, we hope for a lot more than scraping to a seventh place finish but after what happened in California in May, we're not going to get complacent.
Brent Bookwalter Yannick Eijssen Jordan Lewis Jeremy Powers Tejay Van Garderen Danilo Wyss
The final Grand Tour of the year is typically brutal and unforgiving with too many uphill finishes to count. Our sole aim is to get a stage win in Spain, with a strong core of climbers as well as the attacking power of Van Avermaet. A decent GC placing would be nice but none of the team have previous experience of leading a GC charge in a Grand Tour. Have fun on the Angliru boys!
Adam Blythe Matthias Frank Sebastian Lander Steve Morabito Dominik Nerz Damian Owniak Ivan Santaromita Greg Van Avermaet Larry Warbasse
The only German race currently on the World Tour calendar is the sprinter's classic in Hamburg. Attacks don't tend to succeed in this flat race but with the likes of home favourite Burghardt and ex-world champion Ballan, we will try to give it a go. Hushovd will be there if it comes down to a bunch sprint, while Oss, Quinziato and Schär add to a very strong team for the flat.
Alessandro Ballan Marcus Burghardt Thor Hushovd Martin Kohler Klaas Lodewyck Daniel Oss Manuel Quinziato Michael Schär
Manager of Bunzl - Centrica
ICL's World Tour Champions and Talented Bottlers
I'm pleased to say to you that my latest training camp has gain me an advantage, and the alternative to have a long preparation of races before the Vuelta, wouldn't have given me the knowledge that I now process.
The others just arrived for Tour of Pologne and we have a good chance to pull something worthy of showing in the next few days, we are ready for your arrival and can't wait to get started with this stage race. I hope to do well in the BMC colors and to get a chance to show, what we can achieve in the Vuelta later this month.
Today we are spotlighting BMC's current progress in the Vuelta, and even though we've only finished the second stage, there are a lot to discuss, and after that we have an exclussive interview with Damian Owniak.
BMC gets through the Team Time Trial
BMC don't have the strongest team on the Time Trials and even with that as a fact, they fought through the stage with a decent result of their standards. But we're here to talk about Damian Owniak and his accomplishments on the second stage.
Damian managed to keep up in pace with Purito, who also we're joined by Leopold König and Rigoberto Urán. And this group would at the end of the stage fight for the 6th place of the stage, being the 3rd group in front.
And Damian manages to get the 6th place, and he looked better than Purito today, so we will definetely see great things the next coming days. To gain 43 seconds on several rivals for the Top 15 is a great accomplishment
The Peleton - Damian's Vuelta #1
Damian Owniak from the BMC Team has gotten our attention lately at the Tour of Poland, and now he is at his first Grand Tour. We've secured a long and thorough interview with Damian , and we will as the Vuelta continues, keep an eye on Damian. We catched right after the race and with the formal settings set up, this is what he said
Congratulations with this result, How are you feeling ?
What I feel like ? I could do this stage once more, before I would reach my limit!
Your story is unique in it's own way, You race your second stage race on your new team, and that race is 21 days long and is among the most prestigious that exist. how are the atmostphere ?
Ehmm..We are all professional about our goals and our career in general, I've tried to keep positive when approached about anything, and I hope that my team feel comfortable around having me on the team...I hope
Have you realized what you've accomplished today, and how do you feel about it?
I don't think have yet, but I guess that I'm grateful
The next question will be whether you're capable of keeping the pace, as every 2nd stage will include a summit finish, and today was not the hardest day?
I hope
I can see that you're tired, so one last question. What are your personal goals of this Vuelta and what ambitions do the team have?
There can happen a lot, but at this level you want to aim as high as you can, so my goal will be to finish in Top 11 and our managers personal goal is to get a stage win, which is why we don't have a Captain
The Eneco Tour was the next race on the WT calendar and though it may not be the biggest race of the year, as a team with two of the biggest names in Belgium, it's a race that we wanted, and needed, to perform well in.
The first half of the race wasn't where the GC would be decided, so our boys kept quiet and safe in the peloton, though a strong late attack by Gilbert on stage two got him 6th place, but rather unfairly, no time gain. He also got an incredible second place on a crosswind-affected stage four, only beaten by Greipel in the sprint. His form was clearly there, so could he make it count as the race hit the decisive stages?
The stage 5 time trial was more about Phinney as the young American was the only rider to get close to Cancellara, being beaten by just two seconds to move right up into GC contention. Gilbert managed to limit his losses to the Swiss machine though, finishing just outside the top ten, 25 seconds down. Now it was in to the hills.
Stage six featured three ascents of Philippe's "home climb", La Redoute, so he certainly had no excuse for not knowing the route. And he made the most of his form and local knowledge, putting in a devastating, attacking performance. He made sure to follow all of the other attacks to nullify the threat, in particular Gasparotto, who was very active. After the others had burned what energy they had, Gilbert went on the attack himself and this time not even Cancellara could follow and he reached the foot of La Redoute with a big lead as his fanclub went crazy.
In the end, he crossed the line almost two minutes ahead of second placed man Diego Ulissi, who dropped Cancellara on the final ascent.
Stage 7 saw some nasty cobbled sections, including the Muur van Geraadsbergen, so the threat was more likely to come from Cancellara than Ulissi here. Unsurprisingly, after some fantastic riding by the team (including, at one point, Burghardt, Quinziato and Gilbert dropping the entire field on their own!), Cancellara put in the expected attack. However, you have to get up early to fool the World Champion and Philippe shadowed him all the way.
At the finish line, early attacker Andrews of Garmin took the win, with Gilbert finishing in 11th, just behind Cancellara but with the same time. After a tactical masterclass by him and the whole team, Gilbert wrapped up our first WT stage race win of the year and only our second in total after Phinney's win in De Panne. The American put in a great ride here as well, ending the race in eighth place, with Ballan and Oss just outside the top ten too. An unfortunately timed crash by Van Avermaet in the final stage ruined his race but he still finished in 20th place. Added to that, Gilbert also won the points jersey, just beating Greipel on the final stage to win by two points and we also won the teams' classification, which doesn't come as a surprise after the race we had.
Fantastic performance by everyone this week and a richly deserved win.
Result - Eneco Tour
1
Philippe Gilbert
BMC Racing Team
23h44'51
2
Johan Le Bon
FDJ.fr
+ 1'18
3
Fabian Cancellara
RadioShack - Leopard
+ 1'43
4
Edvald Boasson Hagen
Sky Procycling
+ 1'52
5
Richard Löwenherz
Katusha Team
+ 2'07
6
Diego Ulissi
Lampre - Merida
+ 2'21
7
Enrico Gasparotto
Astana Pro Team
+ 2'31
8
Taylor Phinney
BMC Racing Team
+ 2'52
9
Geraint Thomas
Sky Procycling
+ 3'09
10
Andrey Amador
Movistar Team
+ 3'10
11
Alessandro Ballan
BMC Racing Team
+ 3'32
...
13
Daniel Oss
BMC Racing Team
+ 3'53
20
Greg Van Avermaet
BMC Racing Team
+ 7'14
32
Marcus Burghardt
BMC Racing Team
+ 8'30
90
Manuel Quinziato
BMC Racing Team
+ 20'49
125
Klaas Lodewyck
BMC Racing Team
+ 25'34
Manager of Bunzl - Centrica
ICL's World Tour Champions and Talented Bottlers
I just wanted to alert the team of interest from Vaconsoleil in a number of your team's riders, namely Ivan Santamorita. I hope to do business with you when the transfer season opens.
After a long conversation with my manager, we've come to the conclusion that we want to continue our Work throughout the next season and that I'm gonna be a huge asset to mark our primary goals.
My role next season will be as Lieutenant Again and I have send my wishes to help Tejay for a strong Top 11 in a GT and that I've uttered a wish where I can develop my skills throughout the first parts of the season and that I will get some chances to ride for my own chances.
But one quick mention will be that my main skills is set as a Climber, and I will over the break try to develop my fitness to a point where I won't ride with no energy in any race that I might participate in, as was the problem in the Vuelta.
Worlds
I've been appointed to both the U23 and the Elite Team and I am pleased to announce that I've gonna be the captain for the U23 team, which doesn't include Kwiatkowski this year, so I will have some giant steps to follow there.
I will look forward to this opportunity and you might have a U23 World Champion on your team next year!
The Future
After Worlds I will go to Australia as I've been invited to particpate in the first World Cup tournaments in the Mountain Bike class called XCO, which is the longest category of the World Cup.
After the World Cups I will return to Poland to particpate in the Polish Mountain Bike League Again this year and I hope to get 1st place this year Again there. After that I hope that I will get a chance to ride with Tejaý in Paris - Nice and from there I can only dream!
We at Androni have some good news for you. We are interestind in Morabito, Santamorita and Moinard.
But we are also very interested in signing Cadel Evans, we have seen you have not exactly liked his performances this season and we believe he will best suit the PCT.
Adam Blythe
Yannick Eijssen
Sebastian Lander
Daniel Oss
Jeremy Powers
Danilo Wyss
Marcus Burghardt
Cadel Evans
Thor Hushovd
Amael Moinard
Damian Owniak
Marco Pinotti
Nairo Quintana
Alberto Contador
Roman Kreuziger
Rajesh Kakhi
Barry Markus
Jempy Drucker
Matthias Brändle
Sergey Firsanov
Peter Sagan
Jorge Cristobal Riquelme
Andrey Amador
