Prior to Friday's presentation in Grenchen, Switzerland of the 28 riders who will comprise the BMC Racing Team for 2014, the WorldTour squad announced contract renewals for five riders on the team: Brent Bookwalter, Marcus Burghardt, Yannick Eijssen, Martin Kohler and Danilo Wyss.
Bookwalter content with top 10 performance at Alberta
BMC's general manager Jim Ochowicz stated that each fill important roles critical to the success of the team.
"Having raced for us before, they know our patterns, our system, and they understand our racing style," said Ochowicz. "They fulfill an important need we have so our leaders can count on their skills to improve their results."
Bookwalter won the opening stage of the Tour of Qatar on the way to finishing second overall there and later in the season placed second overall at the inaugural Tour of Alberta. The 29-year-old American also won silver medals in both the individual time trial and road race at US professional national championships, competed in the Tour de France and helped teammate Tejay van Garderen win the Amgen Tour of California and USA Pro Challenge.
Burghardt, 30, was part of breakaways on three consecutive stages on the way to winning the king of the mountains classification at the Tour de Romandie. The German also finished his sixth Tour de France in as many starts and helped BMC win the team classification at the Tour of Alberta.
Eijssen earned a career-best, third-place finish on Stage 5 of the Tour of Utah that also won him "most aggressive rider" honors. The 24-year-old Belgian also finished his second straight Vuelta a España in as many starts.
Kohler, 28, won a bronze medal at the Swiss national road championship and was fourth on Stage 18 of the Vuelta a España – a career-best result in a Grand Tour stage. The past Swiss national road (2012) and time trial (2011) champion also helped Thor Hushovd win two stages and the overall at the Arctic Race of Norway.
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Wyss, 28, registered a dozen top-10 finishes, including four at the Volta a Catalunya. The Swiss rider's 10th-place finish at Ster ZLM Toer was a career-best result at a stage race.
Specific terms and other details of the contracts were not released.
