Hilly and technical course not suited to BMC Racing squad
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Team BMC finishes up(Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Cadel Evans leads the BMC train(Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Cadel Evans (BMC) waves to the crowd(Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Team BMC on the start line of the team time trial(Image credit: Sirotti)
Team BMC pushes up the climb(Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Cadel Evans may have arrived at the Giro d'Italia lacking the physical condition to contest for the number-one spot in the general classification but that doesn't mean the 2010 points classification winner is racing the Italian grand tour without ambition.
Evans' BMC Racing Team was expected to perform amongst the best in the team time trial on Stage 2 but after 17.4 kilometres of racing, the US-registered squad came up short. The team was to be guided by Taylor Phinney, a proven rider in tests against the clock but coming in with only the 12th-best time and 37-seconds down on the winning Sky team was not what the squad envisioned.
"We had a lot of sprinter kind of guys and roulers, which normally in a team time trial is great," said Evans. "But this course was particularly hilly. Thirty-seven seconds is a little bit below what I had hoped or expected, but that's the way it is.
"The guys put in everything. Someone like Klaas Lodewyck – he really gave it absolutely everything he had today, so I'm certainly not going to ask anything more of him," adde Evans of his teammate who sacrificed finishing with the six-man group including Phinney, Daniel Oss, Ivan Santaromita, Morabito, Cummings and the former Tour de France champion Evans.
"That's the way it is. We'll keep going from here," he said.
Team sports director Max Sciandri, who is reported to be taking up a more permanent position with the Italian National Team at some stage after the Giro, echoed similar sentiment to Evans. Sky brought a team of climbers to support Bradley Wiggins' bid to take the maglia rosa back to the UK and if the course had been a more traditional circuit, the end result could have been very different.
"There were climbs of eight, nine or 10 percent," said Sciandri. "I think if you look at the winning [Sky] team, it is more of an imprint of a climber team. We had some really good guys who can go on the flats like a regular time trial. But we struggled a little bit with some guys on the climbs. But I don't think we could have given anything more."
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Evans will start Stage 3 in 60th-place, 37-seconds down on the new race leader Salvatore Puccio (Sky). Wiggins, arguably the biggest favourite the win the Giro outright sits on the same time as his Giro debutant Puccio.
