After the stage 8, which finished with Alexis Vuillermoz (AG2R-La Mondiale) taking the stage win on the Mûr-de-Bretagne, Chris Froome (Team Sky) leads the overall by 11 seconds over Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo) with van Garderen position in third at 13 seconds back.
BMC won the world title in the team time trial in Ponferrada, Spain, last year, where they beat Orica-GreenEdge and Omeg Pharma-QuickStep. Van Garderen, Rohan Dennis, Daniel Oss and Manuel Quinziato were all members of that winning performance.
"With the team I have and what they have shown so far, I think we are pretty confident," van Garderen said. "We are just going to go out there and ride as hard as we can. We have four world champions in that discipline on the team, so we will put out the best performance that we think we can."
Double operations for Gerrans
Simon Gerrans has spent much time in hospital this year and recovering from injuries. This week he speeded up the process by having two operations in one.
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Afterward he posted on Instagram, “Out with the old & in with the new. Today I had a plate and screws put in my wrist and while we were at it, we got rid of the ones from my collarbone. Now that's a productive day!”
It was the third major injury for Gerrans this season, after suffering a broken collarbone over the winter and a broken elbow at Strade Bianche.
Pineau retires at the end of the season
Jérôme Pineau (IAM Cycling) will retire as a professional rider at the end of this season. The 35-year-old Frenchman will switch to a career in French media and possibly as a manager. Pineau was the lieutenant of Sylvain Chavanel and captured his biggest victory at the 2010 Giro d’Italia where he won the fifth stage in Novi Ligure.
Cyclingnews spoke with Pineau at the start of stage 8 in the 2015 Tour de France in Rennes. “I’m ending my career as a rider. I came today to announce the news. It’s not an easy decision to make. I thought thoroughly about it for a long time. I rode 14 years as a professional rider and participated in 13 editions of the Tour de France. It’s the moment to do other things in life.”
Last week the news was released that the contract from both Chavanel and Pineau at the IAM Cycling team would not be extended. Pineau explained that his decision wasn’t influenced by that news. “I decided before my contract wasn’t extended. I’ve been thinking about it since May. You have to think about something like that for a while before you make the decision. Today I no longer have the passion, the will and pleasure to train and make the necessary sacrifices on the bike. I’m having a hard time to leave my family behind. It’s better to stop now.
“In the future I hope to be quickly back in cycling, to be a commentator in the media for TV, and for the radio also in football, which I already did in my region. I’ll also try to get a degree to be a manager too.”
Huzarski gives Bora-Argon 18 its first Tour de France podium
34-year-old Bartosz Huzarski gave the Bora-Argon 18 team its first trip to the podium of the Tour de France this year, netting the red dossard as most aggressive rider for stage 8 after making the day-long breakaway with Sylvain Chavanel (IAM Cycling), Romain Sicard (Europcar) and Pierre-Luc Périchon (Bretagne-Séché Environnement).
The Polish rider said, "we didn't win, but wait, there are still two weeks to go. Red number - spent 170km almost in the breakaway, it was a long day, but at least not for free."
