Australian WorldTour team Orica-GreenEdge have announced its nine-rider team for the Tour de France with the objective of claiming stage wins with Simon Gerrans, Michael Matthews and Adam Yates.
"We have a great degree of flexibility, experience and talent in the team for the Tour. I am happy with the combination of riders and it gives us an exciting mix of options for the three weeks ahead," said sports director Matt White. "Our objective is to target stage wins and we will be approaching every day like it's a classic. We have a robust, versatile roster that can cope with the big effort required to compete and win in the Tour de France."
The 2013 Tour was Orica-GreenEdge's most successful yet with Gerrans wining stage 3, followed by team time trial success the next day that put Gerrans into the yellow jersey for two days handing the leader's jersey to Daryl Impey. Gerrans also won a stage of the Tour back in 2008 and will be key to Orica-GreenEdge's ambitions as White explained.
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"Simon (Gerrans) has the most experience at the Tour de France for Orica-GreenEdge with stage wins in 2013 and 2008 and we will be looking to him to increase that tally," he said. "Simon has had great preparation throughout June with stints at altitude and racing at the Dauphine. He performs very well under pressure and has the ability to come up with the goods when the big goals are set."
Matthews will be hoping his Tour will be an improvement upon his 2015 debut when he crashed heavily on stage 3, suffering several broken ribs, and he can add a Tour win to his Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a Espana stage wins.
"For Michael (Matthews) last year’s Tour was somewhat of a disaster, fracturing his ribs on day two," said White. "Even with these unfortunate problems Michael soldiered on bravely which ultimately gave him valuable experience to show how far he could push certain barriers. He is super motivated to perform well here for the first time on the biggest stage in the world."
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