Omega Pharma wins men’s team time trial title
Pre-race favorites come through for world championship
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Omega Pharma-Quick Step won the men’s team time trial world championship Sunday in Valkenburg, Netherlands. Reigning world TT champion Tony Martin anchored the Belgian squad to the world title on the first day of the UCI Road World Championships.
The team entered Sunday’s trade team time trial as the favorite, boasting Martin, French TT champ Sylvain Chavanel, Dutch road champ Niki Terpstra, Belgian TT champ Kristof Vandewalle, Slovak TT champ Peter Velits, and Tom Boonen.
“We fought together as a team,” Martin said. “I’m really happy for all the team. We maintained always a good pace. I really enjoyed today. It was fun and I really like this idea, this team time trial world championship. The team work was once again the key to the success. This victory gives me a lot of morale for Wednesday’s race [individual time trial world championship].”
BMC Racing, which featured Americans Taylor Phinney and Tejay van Garderen, finished second, at three seconds, on the 53km course. Orica-GreenEdge was third, at 47 seconds.
BMC Racing president and general manager Jim Ochowicz said the narrow loss was a painful one.
“This hurts a little bit, especially since it’s a world championship,” Ochowicz said. “It was something we prepared well for obviously, with the results you saw. But it’s a good start to the week for the team. So we have a lot more to look forward to.”
Orica director Matt White was also disappointed.
“The boys were happy to earn a medal, but we came here to win,” White said. “We weren’t good enough to take the win on the day. We gave it everything and executed our plan well, but two teams went faster.”