Cadel Evans leaves behind Ireland after three stages of the Giro d'Italia ahead of all his maglia rosa rivals expect Rigoberto Uran (Omega Pharma-Quick Step). The opening team time trial in which BMC placed third has laid a solid platform for Evans who is looking to claim his first Giro win.
Despite a split in the peloton on stage three, Evans is 14th on GC, 21 seconds behind countryman Michael Matthews (Orica-GreenEdge), but well placed in the context of securing a podium finish when the race finishes in Trieste on June 1.
"Overall, I am happy to get through Ireland without any big problems," Evans said. "We lost a couple seconds in the final in the past two days, which is a little bit unusual. But the way the finishes were, it made it a little bit difficult to be safe and be in front. But that's the way it goes."
BMC president and general manager Jim Ochowicz rode in the team car during the three stages and was pleased by what he saw.
"We had a good team time trial and Cadel is in a reasonably good position coming out of here time-wise, with the other general classification riders," Ochowicz said.
"The other two stages here were really going to be sprinter stages and we knew that. It was about safety and coming out of here whole and we were able to do that. So we've met our goals in Ireland. Now we'll see how it goes in Italy."
There were several crashes on the wet and windy stage, including the maglia rosa Matthews, but BMC's sole aim of protecting Evans from any misfortune was successful as Danilo Wyss said after stage three.
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"It was wet, rainy and cold," Wyss said. "It was a really nervous day, with wet roads and some crashes. But it's a good start. We had a good team trial and not too much trouble in two days. Now we're ready to go to Italy and hope for some better weather."
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