17 March, 2017, Santa Rosa, California (USA)
UCI WorldTour stage racing continues for BMC Racing Team next week as a competitive eight-rider roster heads to Spain for Volta Ciclista a Catalunya.
BMC Racing Team will line up with a strong team in support of Tejay van Garderen, Sports Director Jackson Stewart said.
“With Tejay van Garderen set to captain at Volta Ciclista a Catalunya, we’re going in very motivated. He’s won stages here before and has been in contention for the General Classification multiple times. I am also interested to see what Rohan Dennis can do here, and after his performance at Tirreno-Adriatico, he will also be a protected rider.”
“Our first priority will be the team time trial, and then we will approach each stage as it comes but, I think we will have a strong team in the mountains. Van Garderen has won on top of Molina before and with Dennis’ success in Italy, Ben Hermans’ early season performances in Valencia and Oman, and the experience of Samuel Sánchez, I am confident we can be very competitive.”
For Tejay van Garderen, Volta Ciclista a Catalunya is another building block as he looks ahead to May.
“This will be a good opportunity for me to continue to build my form and get some more racing kilometers in the legs leading into the Giro d’Italia. It’s always a tough week of racing in Catalunya but I’m looking forward to it, especially with the team time trial on stage two,” van Garderen said.
Rohan Dennis is looking to carry his form from Italy into the seven-day stage race.
“Tirreno-Adriatico went well for me, and I was happy to finish second overall but, now my attention has turned to next week. It will be important for me to recover well and this should hopefully improve my form once again before going to Catalunya. This will definitely be a tough race but the team time trial will be a big goal for us. It’s 42km around the Banyoles area, and it could set us up for a good GC for Tejay van Garderen and myself,” Dennis explained.
Volta Ciclista a Catalunya (March 20 – 26)
Rider Roster: Brent Bookwalter (USA), Alessandro De Marchi (ITA), Rohan Dennis (AUS), Kilian Frankiny (SUI), Ben Hermans (BEL), Joey Rosskopf (USA), Samuel Sánchez (ESP), Tejay van Garderen (USA)
Sports Directors: Jackson Stewart (USA), Yvon Ledanois (ITA)
