GreenEDGE: A win, finally, but not for Gerrans

It was a long time coming, but GreenEDGE ended its barren run with a much-needed victory in the opening team time trial at Tirreno-Adriatico on Wednesday.

The collective result was the new Australian team’s first major stage win since forming and came 24 hours after Simon Gerrans was once again pipped into second place by Spain’s Alejandro Valverde in another European stage race, Paris-Nice.

Beating the RadioShack-Nissan team of specialist time trial guru Fabian Cancellara by 17 seconds over the 17km course in Tuscany, GreenEDGE were led over the line by Matt Goss who now wears the team’s first leaders jersey on European soil.

With both Garmin-Barracuda and Team Sky – outfits renowned for their against-the-clock prowess – also beaten, it was a good day in the office for Matt White’s men (who also beat Cadel Evans’s inauspiciously disappointing BMC team by a whopping 58 seconds).

The GreenEDGE directeur sportif (quite rightly) waxed lyrical about the achievement, telling Cyclingnews that he “had never seen a more consistent and smooth ride than today”.

Prior to the victory, however, the only thing consistent about GreenEDGE was their inability to finish a stage race in front of the rest.

While the GreenEDGE ladies cannot stop mounting the podium this season – last weekend saw victories in the Tour of New Zealand and in the women’s Omloop Het Nieuwsblad race in Belgium – the Australian Sparkling Shiraz had been chilling on ice for the men for quite some time.

In the men’s Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, which opened the Belgian classics season almost two weeks ago, Lithuanian Thomas Vaitkus was GreenEDGE’s best-placed rider – coming home in a lowly 56th place more than five minutes behind winner Sep Vanmarcke of Garmin-Barracuda.

The next day, another Lithuanian – Aidis Kruopis – almost made the top-ten with 12th place in the bunch sprint of Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, won by the world champion Mark Cavendish (Sky).

Granted, Gerrans had already won the overall title in the team’s inaugural race on home soil, but his Tour Down Under win in January came without seizing a stage scalp, while Robbie McEwen’s recent Singapore sling was no lofty ProTour affair, simply an exhibition ride.

On Tuesday, Gerrans had come close to breaking the duck in stage three of Paris-Nice – only for Valverde to prove for a second time this season that he’s half a wheel better than his Australian rival.

On paper, the result in France was an exact copy of the pair’s antipodean tete-a-tete on Old Willunga Hill, where the Movistar rider – nicknamed ‘The Green Bullet’ – tore down the outside of the final bend to take a slender win, his first since returning from suspension.

Although the same outcome, the two finishes were the exact antithesis of one another. At Willinga, it was Gerrans who opened up the sprint on the left-hand side of the road, with Valverde sweeping through on the right to secure the victory.

At Lac de Vassiviere, it was Gerro who had to come from way back after making a bit of a hash of his positioning on the final ascent. As Valverde tired, the Australian powered up on the right-hand side of the road – only to be outdone by virtue of the Spaniard’s superior stretch.

One revered European cycling blogger wrote a whole entry about how the Spaniard’s thrusting technique probably secured the win. (I would add that it perhaps helps when you have long spindly arms like Valverde as opposed to the chunky guns of Gerrans.)

Anyway, it was immaterial: GreenEDGE had come up short once again. Gerrans’s two second-places were the best the team could manage: compare that to the winning tallies of Omega Pharma-Quick Step or Lotto-Belisol, who are both well into double figures for the season.

Worryingly, Gerrans didn’t seem to bothered by it. “Obviously, we’re a little bit disappointed that I couldn’t quite finish it off,” Gerrans said. “We want a win here in Paris-Nice, but I think we’re happy enough to have had a go.

“To be so close shows we’re right up in there and in the mix of things. Wins in Europe aren’t too far away.”

While you could say Gerrans was correct in his summation – after all, a win in Europe came the very next day – surely it was not good enough for someone who has triumphed in all three Grand Tours to have been happy with simply having had a go.

The 31-year-old should have been tearing his hair out at having lost again to Valverde; he should be asking questions of his team; working out why, once again, Valverde’s Movistar were so more prominent on the front of the peloton than his own GreenEDGE team-mates.

For a team with such high ambitions, a culture of happy-enough-to-have-given-it-a-go doesn’t cut the mustard.

Twenty-four hours later, as his team-mates were pedalling to victory over the border in Italy, Gerrans’s stage four chances were thwarted when he collided with some road furniture inside the final two kilometres and finished four-and-a-half minutes off the pace in Rodez.

It was an unlucky turn of events, for the uphill finale would have suited Gerrans to a tee – plus the man who won, Gianni Meersman of Belgian, was a rider comfortably beaten into third place by Valverde and Gerrans a day earlier.

Thanks to Goss and his five team-mates in Italy, that first notch on the bedpost can be made.

But the wait for an elusive individual stage win continues – and despite what he may say when in full PR mode, Gerrans will be eager to set the record straight. And in all honesty, Gerrans seems to be the only rider capable of delivering – just as long as he doesn’t face his nemesis the Green Bullet, that is.