The BMC Racing Team has announced that the 2010 roster has been finalised, leaving the team with 23 riders from seven countries plus three others who will compete at the Under 23 level.
The team features a noticeable jump-up in quality when compared to this year’s squad, with 2009 world champion Cadel Evans, 2008 champion Alessandro Ballan and US national champion George Hincapie all signing up.
The roster also includes other winning riders, including Marcus Burghardt, who transfers from the highly-successful. Columbia HTC team.
“Management has assembled an outstanding group of athletes capable of competing anywhere,” said its president Jim Ochowicz. “It will be a pleasure to see them in action with the best teams in the world next season.”
Directeur Sportif John Lelangue is expecting this lineup to be competitive from the start to the end of the season, and in the biggest events in the sport.
“The past two seasons we have grown into a strong team, and combining that with the big recruitment effort we have made this year, we expect to be competitive in every race we enter from the one day classics, to the one week stage races to the Grand Tours,” he stated.
The American-registered, Swiss-sponsored team has applied for Professional Continental and Wild Card statuses for 2010, rather than chasing a ProTour contract. With Evans a double runner-up in the Tour de France and other strong riders on the roster, it will hope that will be enough to gain them a place in the Tour and other top competitions.
“We want to be at all the big races, though of course there are no guarantees,” Lelangue admitted. “But I am sure we have the organization to be competitive and that is a huge satisfaction.”
Lelangue previously worked with the Phonak team and is a former employee of ASO, the Tour de France organisers. BMC Racing has already been invited to two ASO-backed races, the Tour of Qatar (February 7 to 12) and the Tour of Oman (February 14 to 19). Before that, it will make its season debut in the ProTour Tour Down Under.
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2010 BMC Racing Team Roster:
Alessandro Ballan (IT)
Chris Barton (USA)
Chad Beyer (USA)
Brent Bookwalter (USA)
Marcus Burghardt(GER)
Cadel Evans (AUS)
Mathias Frank (SUI)
Thomas Frei (SUI)
George Hincapie (USA)
Martin Kohler (SUI)
Alexander Kristoff (NOR)
Karsten Kroon (NED)
Jeff Louder (USA)
Steve Morabito (SUI)
Alex Moos (SUI)
John Murphy (USA)
Scott Nydam (USA)
Mauro Santambrogio (IT)
Michael Schär (SUI)
Florian Stalder (SUI)
Jackson Stewart (USA)
Danilo Wyss (SUI)
Simon Zahner (SUI)
U23 Team Members:
Chris Butler (USA)
Cole House (USA)
Larry Warbasse (USA)
Sports Director:
John Lelangue (BEL)
Assistant Sports Directors:
Fabio Baldato (IT)
Noel Dejonckheere (BEL)
René Savary (SUI)
Mike Sayers (USA)