Evans says he'll finally have 100 percent team support in the grand tours from BMC
Cadel Evans hopes he will finally have the full backing of a team that he never had thanks to his move to BMC for the 2010 campaign.His five-year run at Belgian Silence-Lotto was always full of doubt. Despite proving himself as a legitimate Tour de France contender with back-to-back second places, he never seemed to gain the full endorsement and confidence of the classics-centered Belgian team.
The recently crowned world champion hopes he’s found that with BMC, the U.S.-registered team backed by Swiss businessman Andy Rihs that’s made a major push for the big leagues going into next season.
“When you’re looking for a team as a rider for the grand tours, you need a team that’s 100 percent behind you from day one,” Evans told reporters in Adelaide. “But you also need riders who are capable of doing it, physically capable of doing the necessary work.”
Evans’ move to BMC over the weekend was a big surprise, especially considering that BMC has never ridden a grand tour.
Evans – who was third overall at the Vuelta a España in September before riding into the rainbow jersey – says he’s optimistic the team can muscle its way into the top grand tours.
“We're guaranteed a start in the Tour of Italy, and then it's up to us to prove that we shouldn't be left out of the Tour de France,” Evans said.
With the arrival of Evans, the squad will round out what was looking like a strong classics outfit with the likes of George Hincapie, Marcus Burghardt, Karsten Kroon and Alessandro Ballan. A total of 13 riders have joined the squad.
In fact, team manager John Lelangue had hinted that the team was eyeing big classics success in 2010 to help pave the way for entry to the Tour de France in 2011.
With Evans, those stakes have changed and there will be tremendous pressure on the team to try to earn a wild-card bid to earn a berth to start next year’s Tour.
Connections to some of the team’s key players should help ease the way into the Tour. Lelangue is a former Tour official and team manager Jim Ochowicz ran 7-11 and Motorola, with deep ties to the Tour.
Evans, 32, admitted that it’s a risk to move to the untested BMC team.
“It's a risk, I'm aware of it but it's a risk that I'm willing to take," Evans said on Monday. “Now it's up to us as a team, all of us together, to prove that we're not worth leaving behind. Sometimes you have to take a few risks in life."
Negotiations began several weeks ago with the Australian forced to buy himself out of the final year of his Silence-Lotto deal to sign for three years with BMC.
"BMC is a small team but it's growing, it has very good people behind it, a very good organization," Evans continued."The mentality and philosophy suit my mentality and philosophy. And of course we have a common goal and that is to improve on my best place at the Tour de France which is second. We have a few years to work towards that. It's just a really nice fit."
AFP contributed to this report