Dennis and van Garderen to lead BMC at Paris-Nice

Australian Rohan Dennis and American Tejay van Garderen will headline the BMC Racing Team roster for Paris-Nice.

Freshly minted world hour record holder Dennis has had a sparkling start to 2015 with a WorldTour victory at the Santos Tour Down Under while van Garderen opened up his year with a second place overall at the Tour of Oman.

SBS will broadcast every stage of Paris-Nice live!

As team leader van Garderen is the rider BMC will focus on for the overall at Paris-Nice, with Dennis acting as his wing man.

The American particularly looked good in Oman and appeared hungry to start off his season with a victory, but weather conditions on the key fifth stage intervened to deny him a chance.

He finished only nine seconds behind Lampre-Merida's Rafael Valls after the final stage in Muscat.

van Garderen is among the favourites for the overall Paris-Nice victory along with Australian Richie Porte (Sky), Fabio Aru (Astana), Michal Kwiatkowski (Etixx-QuickStep), Jean-Christophe Péraud and Romain Bardet from AG2R, Andrew Talansky (Cannondale-Garmin), Rafal Majka (Tinkoff-Saxo) and Warren Barguil (Giant-Alpecin).

Dennis and van Garderen will be joined by two other members of the BMC Racing Team's winning world team time trial championship squad from last fall, Silvan Dillier and Peter Velits.

Past world road champion Philippe Gilbert and 2010 Paris-Nice "king of the mountains" winner Amael Moinard will also compete in the eight-day race that begins early morning on Monday 9 March AEDT.

BMC for Paris-Nice

Rohan Dennis (AUS), Tejay van Garderen (USA), Silvan Dillier (SUI), Philippe Gilbert (BEL), Ben Hermans (BEL), Amaël Moinard (FRA), Michael Schär (SUI) and Peter Velits (SVK).