Matt White share his thoughts on Team Orica-GreenEdge’s performance at the UCI World Team Time Trial Event
Team Orica-GreenEdge is having an outstanding season and the Australian side was looking good to grab gold at the UCI World Championships, Men’s Team Time Trial Event.
Team Orica-GreenEdge finished 47 seconds behind the leading side, Team Omega Pharma-Quickstep and occupied the third spot.
Tom Boonen, Sylvain Chavanel, Tony Martin, Niki Terpstra, Kristof Vandewalle and Peter Velits helped the Belgian side with the victory after they finished the race in a total time of 1:03:17.17.
Alessandro Ballan, Philippe Gilbert, Taylor Phinney, Marco Pinotti, Manuel Quinziato and Tejay Van Garderen helped the team with the second spot helped Team BMC in securing the second spot after it finished 0:00:03.23 behind.
The six-man squad for Team Orica-GreenEdge consisted of Sam Bewley, Luke Durbridge, Sebastian Langeveld, Cameron Meyer, Jens Mouris and Svein Tuft fell further 0:00:47.06 behind at the third position.
Team Director Matt White was content with the team’s performance, though a little cheerless after missing the gold.
"It was a good course but slower than a lot of people predicted. The guys were saying that the wind was a lot stronger than yesterday and it was a grind," White told Cyclingnews.
"It wouldn't have been fun to finish fourth. Championships are about medals and it's satisfying to get one”.
“We came here to win, like a few other teams, but some teams went too fast in the middle section, and we were steady through there”.
“Those other two teams [BMC and Omega Pharma - QuickStep] were able to increase their pace in the second half of the race".
Matt White will now be concentrating towards the Australian National team for the coming races in the event including the Elite Men’s Time Trial and the Elite Men Road Race on Wednesday and Sunday respectively.
Simon Gerrans will lead the Australian squad at the road race and the cyclist is in fabulous form after his top performances at the Milan-San Remo and the Grand Prix Cycliste de Quebec, just recently.
Team Australia will ride the Sunday’s event without a number of its renowned cyclists and all eyes are on Gerrans.
The 32-year-old is pretty much capable of turning the tables on any opposition and only needs to get his guts together to find the ultimate glory at the coming race.
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