Lacking a Tour de France GC threat, CCC Team will hunt stage wins
Without a proper GC rider like his team's previous iteration, BMC Racing, Jim Ochowicz will send his CCC Team into their inaugural Tour de France with a roster of opportunists hoping to land a stage win for the first Polish-registered team to participate in the French Grand Tour.
Reigning Olympic champion Greg Van Avermaet will lead the eight-rider roster, which will also feature fellow Belgian Serge Pauwels, Kiwi Patrick Bevin, Italian Alessandro De Marchi, German Simon Geschke, American Joey Rosskopf, Swiss Michael Schär and Polish rider Lukasz Wisniowski.
“We are lining up at the Tour de France with a fresh approach and new objectives," Ochowicz said in the team's roster announcement. "This may be the team’s 10th Tour de France, but it will be the first year in that time that we line up without a general classification contender, so this is new terrain for us."
Ochowicz said the team is highly motivated in their Tour de France debut and will race aggressively throughout the three weeks.
"We have to, and we will line up at every start with the belief that we can win that stage," he said. "It’s not easy to win a stage at the Tour de France, but we have riders who have won before, and the opportunity given to all eight riders to go for their own results gives them a level of freedom most have never had. We are excited to see what they can do.”
Van Avermaet has won two stages at the Tour and was the last Belgian to wear the yellow jersey when he took the race lead for eight days last year. Geschke won a Tour stage in 2015, and both Bevin and Schär have won team time trial stages at the Tour with BMC. De Marchi, a triple stage winner in the Vuelta a Espana, had a strong spring with seventh at Amstel Gold Race and solid rides in both Paris-Nice and Critérium du Dauphiné. Rosskopf and Wiśniowski will be making their Tour debuts.
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