Richie Porte will once again lead the line for BMC Racing at the Tour de France in 2018, while Tejay van Garderen is set to return to the race as one of the Australian's key super-domestiques.
With 48 wins in 2017 and 22 of them at WorldTour level, few would argue BMC Racing had a disappointing season. They shone at the Spring Classics courtesy of Greg Van Avermaet, while Porte chipped in with vital wins before crashing out of the Tour de France in July. Dylan Teuns had a breakthrough season, and Rohan Dennis and the BMC's team time trialing strength also bolstered the stats.
The 2018 campaign will be built on similar foundations. Van Avermaet will have free rein at the Spring Classics, and Porte leads the team's challenge at the Tour de France in July. The most notable shifts include van Garderen drafted as a super-domestique for Porte and Dennis given another chance at the Giro d'Italia. Along with their habitual target of topping the WorldTour rankings, the team will also take aim at the Tour podium.
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"We need to get on the podium at the Tour," Jim Ochowicz said during his state-of-the-union style address at the team's camp in Denia, Spain.
"Cadel was our last Tour podium finisher, winning in 2011, and we know how to do it. I understand that you need luck and to have the right athletes lining out for you, but we have the right riders and Richie is our guy to get the job done. Richie is definitely a contender, and he'll start at the Tour Down Under, as he did in 2017. He'll start there with Dennis and Simon Gerrans, so we're going there with a team that's focused on the race. Three of them have won that race in the past."
Porte will be 33 by the time the Tour de France rolls around next year, and this is potentially his last all-out attack on the general classification. He came into the 2017 race as one of the red-hot favourites but crashed out in dramatic fashion on stage 9 to Chambery.
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