Jim Ochowicz, the president of BMC Racing Team, made it clear: "Our primary goal is to win the Tour de France this year."

The American outfit has recruited Richie Porte to reach this goal.

“It's nice of the team to have let me gradually build my season towards the Tour”, the Australian said. “It's very different from last year. With Chris Froome, off the bike we're still friends, but on the bike we're rivals. I don't expect any favour from these guys [Team Sky] and they don't expect any favour from us.”

Porte will co-captain the team with Tejay van Garderen who is no stranger to making the top 5 of the Tour de France (in 2012 and 2014).

“It's a well balanced race”, the American noted. “Every Tour you do is never flat. I like there are more time trial kilometers. It suits us well.

"We got to get a glimpse of the world's history yesterday [at the teams presentation in Saint-Mère-Eglise]. Remembering the soldiers from World War II gives us a perspective of what we're doing here. It's a beautiful place to be starting. We're such an international team with Americans, a German, a Frenchman…”

The Frenchman is Amaël Moinard who hails from Cherbourg where stage 2 will come to a conclusion.