Van Garderen leads BMC for Tour de France

The BMC team, minus Australian 2011 winner Cadel Evans, will be led by American cyclist Tejay Van Garderen at next week's Tour de France.

American rider Tejay Van Garderen will spearhead the BMC team in the Tour de France which gets under way next week.

Former winner Cadel Evans and Belgian Philippe Gilbert have not been included but three riders who helped the Australian win in 2011 - Marcus Burghardt, Amael Moinard and Michael Schar - will be joined by Tour veterans Daniel Oss, Greg Van Avermaet and Peter Velits.

Darwin Atapuma and Peter Stetina are first-time participants in the three-week, 21-stage race that begins on July 5 with three stages in Great Britain and covers 3664km before ending on July 27 in Paris.

"We put together a well-balanced team of climbers and helpers to support Tejay on all terrain and, at the same time, we want to be able to try for stage wins on specific days," team sporting manager Allan Peiper said.

Van Garderen, 25, will be making his fourth Tour de France start with his best finish a fifth place in 2012.

He was forced to withdraw from this year's Paris-Nice race because of illness and suffered a small hip fracture in a crash during the prologue of the Tour de Romandie.

But the American insisted: "I don't think the setbacks are going to have any effect on how the Tour de France is going to be raced.

"The bottom line is you can come back from just about anything if you have put in the work in the winter.

"I have trained hard and have a solid base and solid foundation of training. It's just a matter of not having any bad luck."

BMC Tour de France team:

Darwin Atapuma (COL), Marcus Burghardt (GER), Amael Moinard (FRA), Daniel Oss (ITA), Michael Schar (SUI), Peter Stetina (USA), Greg Van Avermaet (BEL), Tejay van Garderen (USA), Peter Velits (SVK)


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