GreenEdge owner impressed by former world champion's form
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The men's elite podium (l-r): Cameron Meyer (2nd), Luke Durbridge (1st) and Michael Rogers (3rd).(Image credit: Shane Goss)
Michael Rogers (Sky)(Image credit: Bettini Photo)
2012 Tour de France champion Bradley Wiggins is congratulated by Sky teammate Michael Rogers as they cross the finish line in Paris.(Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Orica-GreenEdge founder Gerry Ryan is tipping Australia's Michael Rogers to spring an upset during Wednesday's Olympic Games 44 kilometre time trial in London.
Rogers, a three-time former world time trial champion, is the nation's only male representative in the race following the withdrawal of Cadel Evans after the men's road race.
The 32-year-old is coming off the Tour de France where rode in support of Sky teammate Bradley Wiggins where he became the first British winner of the grand boucle. Rogers told Cyclingnews in January that he was ready to renew his focus on the chrono having become "really bored" with its punishing training regime.
"Mick had a really good Tour and he has set himself up for this," Ryan told the Australian Financial Review. "He's very keen to do well."
As for the man himself, Rogers is quietly confident that he can step onto the podium at the end of the day.
"I like it [the course] - it's fast, I have good legs and it's a good course for me," he told AAP.
"I can only go off the past, can't I.
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"For the one-day time trials I'm always up around the mark.
"I certainly hope to go a good ride, I feel fresh today, that's a good sign."
Rogers is still chasing a bronze medal from the Athens Olympic Games in 2004 after the USA's Tyler Hamilton handed back his gold medal having confessed to doping. Rogers finished fourth in the event but is yet to receive official notification of the place changes. The deadline for the International Olympic Committee to officially change the result - Russian Viatcheslav Ekimov should be upgraded to a gold medal and the USA's Bobby Julich given a silver medal with Rogers bronze - with the eight-year statute of limitations running out this month.
A previous joint appeal by the Russian and Australian Olympic Committees to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, in 2006, was denied. The Russians and Australians had asked unsuccessfully for CAS to give Hamilton's medal to Ekimov.
