The 2017 season has started brightly for UnitedHealthcare with stage wins at the Herald Sun Tour and Tour de Langkawi via its newly assembled lead-out train. While the Australian opener had limited chances for stage wins, the Malaysian stage race offers six bites of the cherry for the fast men.
Travis McCabe added to his Herald Sun Tour victory on stage 2 of the Tour de Langkawi, but the team's directeur sportif Hendrik Redant believes the results haven't quite matched the performances.
"We had ambitions for more than one stage win and also we wanted to do something in the general with Daniel Jarmillo. But honestly, on the Cameron Highlands climb we were not strong enough to break it up," Redant told Cyclingnews. "The goal is always to win one stage but in my heart, I came to win more.”
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A secondary goal for the team during this early-season block has been to dial in their lead-out, headlined by new recruits, McCabe and Greg Henderson. While teams have commented on UnitedHealthcare's timing and precision in Malaysia, two cases of misfortune have arguably cost them at the pointy end.
Stage 5 of the race presented the team with a prime opportunity for a second stage win only for a moment of madness from Marco Benfatto (Androni) as the Italian bumped McCabe in the final. Benfatto would later be relegated to last place in the peloton for the act, having initially finished third.
"I didn't want to mention it, but we missed a possibility for first because he was well placed in the wheel of the leader who won the stage at that point," Redant said of the incident. "It's lucky that they didn't crash. I said to the manager that whatever you do you have to keep your hands on the handlebars."
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