After yesterday’s epic slog down the California coast, the race remained very tight. Barely a cough separated the first ten riders on the General Classification which meant that the 15 mile (24km) Individual Time Trial around Solvang would once again play a very important role in the composition of the final GC. BMC’s Alex Moos having managed his resources very well all week, succeeded at delivering an excellent performance.

One of his best time trials ever

According to John Lelangue, the BMC Racing Team had every reason to be happy today. “We are happy with the results today,” Lelangue said after the race. “Alex put in a very good time trial, particularly since he is not a specialist at flat courses such as these. He generally excels much more in climbing TTs.” With a field heavily stacked with some of the best time trialists in the world today, the task of keeping close was indeed daunting. “Looking at the finishing times, especially when we remove Leipheimer who is probably the best time trialist around at the moment, Alex’s time is very competitive,” Lelange reported. “For example, I don’t think Alex has ever finished so close to Cancellara.” When reached for comment, Alex Moos said, “I’m not entirely certain where I am placed on the GC after this, but things went well on the course and I am very content with my efforts.”

Focusing on the rest of the week

“Today was the day for Alex to focus on keeping his high GC position,” Lelangue explained, “but for the other guys on the team it was a day to avoid going into the red zone.” With both eyes firmly fixed on defending both their GC position and the KOM jersey which Scott Nydam still holds, Lelangue encouraged the rest of the team to save some of their matched to light up the rest of the stages. “The mission for today was to recover as much as possible from the efforts of the previous day’s racing,” Danilo Wyss reported after his ride, “Mission accomplished, and surprisingly my legs were not too heavy after the long breakaway yesterday.” As for the owner of the King of the Mountains jersey, “Scott is feeling really good today,” Lelangue was pleased to report. “He recovered well after yesterday and road a strong ITT, but was careful not to go into the red zone.” All his energies will be focused now on defending that jersey.

A good group of racers to go forward

“We have a good group of young guys,” Lelangue explained, “who are not afraid to take on the bigger names in the sport.” Though with the defence of Moos’ GC and Nydam’s KOM representing two very big objectives on their plates for the next two stages, does the team feel confident in their roles? “Everyone knows what he needs to do,” Lelangue said, “Alex has his GC, Nydam has the KOM jersey, and we’d like to see Danilo score well in any more sprint finishes to come. We are ready and will do our best to accomplish these goals.” Moos concurred, “I am very confident in the team and in our chances.” If their performances so far in the TOC are anything to go by, then their best seems to be pretty good indeed.

Alex Moos did today one of his best time trial ever. (Photo by Mark Adkinson)

This entry was posted on Friday, February 22nd, 2008 at 4:21 pm and is filed under Stage 5, BMC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.