In a Tour de France that was supposed to be all about the Fab Four, the Fifth Beatle has quietly elevated himself to marquee billing, though Tejay van Garderen (BMC) reached for a more recent cultural reference during his rest day press conference in Pau.
“The Backstreet Boys have five guys. It seemed a little incomplete,” van Garderen joked. The list of pre-race favourites began and ended with the names Froome, Quintana, Contador and Nibali, though van Garderen’s display thus far has been enough to add him to the reckoning.
“Those guys have all won Grand Tours and I have not, I haven’t even been on the podium of one, so it’s logical those guys were the five star favourites,” he said. “It was nice to fly under the radar a little bit but I was not at all offended. But it doesn’t matter what their names are or what they’ve done, the clock was at zero in Utrecht and we’ve raced here to win.”
ADVERTISEMENT
After nine days of racing, the clock shows that van Garderen is just 12 seconds down on Froome, but almost a minute ahead of Contador, almost two minutes clear of Quintana and more than two up on Nibali. Van Garderen demurred when asked if he would settle now for second place overall in Paris.
“Right now if you put it on the table, I would say no,” van Garderen said. “I value more the process of how it happens. I would rather live through the process of getting 5th place and knowing I’d given 100 percent rather than signing a piece of paper guaranteeing me second place.”
Van Garderen’s status at this point in the Tour is thanks in no small part to the ability of his backing band at BMC. Victory in the team time trial in Plumelec on Sunday was the high note, but all through the first week his teammates performed a very passable cover version of Cadel Evans’ cohort at his victorious 2011 Tour.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest News http://ift.tt/1O2IFgX
No comments:
Post a Comment