BMC’s locked and loaded with guns
A NEW-LOOK BMC Racing Team is going all out to defend its three major titles of the Australian summer of cycling which begins in Ballarat tomorrow.
Rohan Dennis (national time trial), Miles Scotson (national road race) and Richie Porte (Tour Down Under) will all defend their titles backed by superstar signing Simon Gerrans.
Unlike last year when Scotson was the sole BMC rider in the national championship road race and produced a stunning upset victory, the team will have all four Aussies on the start line on Sunday.
The national championships begin with a twilight criterium in the Ballarat CBD tomorrow night followed by the time trial on Friday.
“I thought it was really nice to have Richie and Rohan to both want to ride the road race and as they said - to go there to help Simon,” BMC performance manager Allan Peiper said. “That’s a good thing that the four of them want to be there and ride for the win together.
“That road race is such a lottery that you can’t pick out one rider when you have a four-man team.
“People have been starved of road racing for a couple of months, riders have changed teams, and us having some of the marquee Australian riders in the team makes it a really important month for us.
“We want to kick off the WorldTour, get up the rankings and have good car position for the Classics coming up.
“And it’s important for that team spirit to kick off well and other riders are motivated to do the same thing.”
Peiper will miss the Australian summer and 20th edition of the TDU while having ongoing treatment in Belgium for cancer.
But he was at the team’s European training camp last month to meet with riders to discuss their 2018 programs.
He said team morale was high and it was largely led by riders including World No.1 and Olympic champion Greg van Avermaet and Michael Schar.
“The team spirit thing is really important and I went with one of my colleagues to a performance seminar in London in November and they talked a lot about creating a performance culture,” Peiper said.
“There’s a lot of things that can affect that in real life and in essence we’ve got 2018 fully sponsored and are working on sponsorship past that, which is in a lot of people’s minds. “The stellar year we had in 2017 was more than we could have hoped for. We were a bit unfortunate in the Tour de France but winning as many races as we did for a team without a sprinter is pretty incredible.’’