Deja vu at the Tour de France as BMC collapses again

When plan B collapsed before plan A, BMC’s Tour unravelled in just a few short minutes on Stage 8.

Col de Pailheres was the first major climb of the 2013 Tour.

By its summit, with team leader Cadel Evans isolated and struggling and his deputy Tejay van Garderen several minutes off the pace, BMC had effectively relinquished any hopes of repeating its 2011 victory.

Things went backwards from there.

By the time Evans finished the stage at Ax 3 Domaines, having lost four minutes to Chris Froome on the Category 1 climb, the ink was practically dry on BMC’s letter of surrender.

The original strategy of riding for Cadel Evans, with Tejay van Garderen as back-up should Cadel not prove up to it, was shredded by the pace of Team Sky and Nairo Quintana.

Sometimes you have to credit your opposition, but Evans himself admitted that the problem lay within his own team bus:

“When you’re in the running for GC, seven kilometres isn’t normally a climb that you should get dropped on… when you see 20 guys riding away from you, you know you’re a long way off the pace.”

In truth, Evans’ teammates had let him down badly, failing to even make the top of the first climb.

The high budget, so-called super team had crumpled under the slightest pressure, a solid 50 kilometres before Evans got into difficulty.

It was a sadly familiar sight to long-time Cadel-watchers, well used to seeing him fighting alone against opponents with multiple allies.

The mystery of van Garderen’s form is the strangest thing. He came into the Tour with barely muffled aspirations of podium finishes and statements about being ready to assume the team leadership if (when) required.

His Tour of California victory had the American cycling press salivating, his fans beating the drums of Evans’ inexorable decline just as Tejay’s star is rising.

In some quarters, it seemed a near certainty that the apprentice would surpass the master.

Tejay dropped more than 12 minutes on Saturday, blaming the heat: “I wish I had more answers, I really don’t know what the problem was. I was getting dropped doing tempo. The heat definitely played into it.”

Unfortunately, van Garderen had an even worse day on Sunday, finishing in 80th place, nearly 23 minutes down on the stage winner Dan Martin.

BMC’s great American hope is now more than 35 minutes down on GC, behind even Orica-GreenEDGE sprinter Daryl Impey.

Otherwise, Stage 9 provided a slightly more credible performance for the team, as Evans finished sixth, with Steve Morabito for company in the yellow jersey group until the day’s final sprint.

Evans is, realistically, out of the hunt for victory, but a podium place or a top five may still be possible: he’s better suited to the lower gradients in the Alps, and he is likely to be stronger in the final week than many of the riders ahead of him on GC.

It’s at least plausible that Evans could pull back the two minutes he needs from the likes of Laurens Ten Dam and Roman Kreuziger. As the man himself said yesterday:

“Certainly you always have to keep your hopes alive. Quitting is not an option right now.”

The frustrating thing for BMC is that their woes came on a weekend where Sky’s cloak of invincibility was ripped open in a tactical mugging from Garmin and Movistar.

Evans should have been revelling in the opportunity to inflict further damage on his arch-rivals, but instead he’s reduced to playing the role of observer while his hand-picked team suffers from its own debilitating episode of ’emperor’s new clothes’.

His comments after stage 9 were revealing:

“What I saw today surprised me a bit with Sky, it wasn’t what I expected. [Movistar] probably… should have tried a bit earlier on, when they tried with Valverde on the flat there.

“They had Froome closing gaps on the flat on his own, that’s an opportunity, but I just see that as an observer.

“Maybe Quintana was a bit overdone from his efforts yesterday, but I think they could have had a go because they had a lot of numbers there, and two guys on GC you can play with that a bit.”

It’s hard to disagree with Evans, but the disappointing thing for him must be the knowledge that BMC really should have been in Movistar’s position, with Evans and van Garderen delivering the one-two punch.

Talk about missed opportunities!

So where to now for BMC?

With Evans still a podium long-shot, and van Garderen’s hopes obliterated, the most optimistic may argue that Tejay will give Evans his full support.

The realistic would counter that support is worthless if it can’t keep up with the race.

If Evans has another poor day, the team may have to switch its focus to stage wins.

In that case, BMC may gamble on throwing Tejay in a break: he’s no longer a GC threat and might be given enough latitude to pinch a stage.

Still, it’s worth persisting with the GC campaign for now, while hoping van Garderen comes good after a rest day and a few days on flatter terrain, and that Evans’ rivals suffer in the third week.

Undeniably, the team has not performed well so far. A relatively poor team time trial put them on the back foot. The obvious failure of the supporting cast in the Pyrenees is a worry.

Steve Morabito was good in Stage 9, but the team needs much more from Brent Bookwalter and Amael Moinard in the Alps.

Marcus Burghardt and Manuel Quinziato are classics-style riders, really there as enforcers on the flatter stages, but with the team unlikely to be defending a lead, they may be released to freelance.

Then there’s world champion Philippe Gilbert, still winless in 2013, and having ridden the first week of the Tour almost unseen.

Usurped as the best uphill finisher in the peloton by Peter Sagan, Gilbert needs to spark, for the team’s confidence as much as anything.

The problem for BMC is the next week offers few opportunities for redemption: it’s dead flat stages and a time trial until Saturday’s rolling Stage 14, then the brutality of Mont Ventoux on Sunday.

The final week has a hilly time trial, and the Alps. With the team’s climbers out of sorts and no marquee sprinter, there are precious few opportunities for BMC to salvage something from this Tour.

Unfortunately Tejay summed it up perfectly after Stage 9:

“I’m just looking forward to the rest day. Obviously this Tour isn’t really going our way.”