BMC performed below expectations in yesterday's Tirreno-Adriarico team time trial when they could only manage 11th. Team leader Cadel Evans was disappointed to have lost 47 seconds to Michal Kwiatkowski and Rigoberto Uran and says that there is a lot of hard work for the team to do ahead of the Giro d'Italia.
The BMC Racing Team finished 11th in the team time trial Wednesday at Tirreno-Adriatico, conceding 47 seconds to the winning team, as the seven-day race got underway.
Starting in Donoratico and ending in San Vincenzo, the 18.5-kilometer race against the clock featured a technical opening section and a nearly straight run-in to the finish parallel to the seaside.
Omega Pharma-Quick Step, the reigning world team time trial champions, won by 11 seconds ahead of ORICA-GreenEDGE. Movistar Team was third, 18 seconds back.
By being first across the finish line for the Omega Pharma-Quick Step team, Mark Cavendish was first to don the race leader's blue jersey for the second straight year.
"As a team, we rode reasonably well with the capacity that we had," Cadel Evans said. "We stayed together for most of the race and lost only one rider, which is a good sign. But the time is what matters. We have a lot of room where we have to improve, looking towards the Giro. In that regard, the performance is disappointing just looking at the results.
"As a GC (general classification) rider, this race is far from over. There is a lot of racing still to come. But the basis of riding a good GC is not losing time. So to start the first road stage 47 seconds down on someone like Rigoberto Uran is not optimal. Now it is up to us to go into different terrain – terrain we are better prepared for – and to turn that around."
"My goal was for us to finish in the top five and to not lose more than 15 seconds," sports director Valerio Piva said. "I cannot say we made a mistake, because the whole race, the team was good and fast. But not fast enough to be able to finish in the top five.
"For the moment, this is our condition and our place and we need to work. The next days have hard stages and for sure, we can make up the time that we lost today. But we will need to attack now."
You can read our preview of stage 2 here.
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