Given that he departs for Cannondale-Drapac next season, it was perhaps inevitable that Taylor Phinney would draw the short straw and be delegated to speak on behalf of his teammates following BMC’s second place in the team time trial at the UCI Road World Championships in Doha on Sunday.
To compound matters, Phinney was then mistakenly introduced as a newly-crowned world champion when he sat down at the top table in the press conference room, but the American shook off the error with good grace, holding up his silver medal to verify for those present that he and BMC had, in fact, placed second, 11 seconds behind Etixx-QuickStep.
"Obviously we’re pretty disappointed. We came here to win but losing by 11 seconds to Etixx, they showed they were the stronger team. I don’t think we had our best day as a group but we rode as intelligently as we could. I’m proud of the way that we rode," Phinney said.
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Even before his career was almost ended when he broke his leg in a crash at the US National Championships in 2014, Phinney has spoken of his sport with a sense of perspective that can be rare among elite young athletes. Twelve months ago, Phinney was part of the BMC squad that landed this race on home roads in Richmond, but that victory did little to quicken the arduous rehabilitation process beyond boosting morale. By the same token, defeat in Doha had the feel of a disappointment, but nothing more.
"Just generally, I’m grateful to be here. Second place in the World Championships at the end of the day isn’t so bad. The race is over, it’s just a bike race in the desert," Phinney said. "We’d love to have won, but that’s sport and that’s competition. Sometimes you’re beaten by a better squad."
Since its inception in 2012, the current iteration of the Worlds team time trial has been essentially a duel between BMC and Etixx-QuickStep, with the Belgian squad now leading the series 3-2. In that first race in Valkenburg four years ago, a breakdown in communication on the Cauberg proved fatal for Phinney and BMC, as they missed out by just 3 seconds.
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