Tour de France champ hopes to emulate 2011 victory
Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) has confirmed he will start Tirreno Adriatico this year and hopes to win the race again in a repeat of last year. Organisers of the race, RCS Sport – La Gazzetta dello Sport, yesterday unveiled the Tour de France champion as the face of the race for its advertising campaign leading up to the March 7 start.
“I’ve always liked Tirreno-Adriatico, it’s a very prestigious race,” Evans said. “The 2012 route is quite selective but I still hope to win again. I’m very proud of my victory last year and it’s nice to feature in the promotional campaign for this year’s race.”
The ‘Race of the Two Seas’ will again start with a team time trial in which Evans’ BMC Racing Team will hope to better its sixth place from 2011. The team has done a lot of time trial work in recent training camps, attempting to be innovative in the discipline.
The race will run from March 7th to 13th and is the third event in the International Cycling Union’s WorldTour calendar. Thus all eighteen ProTeams will automatically be invited and, no doubt, field strong teams in search of valuable WorldTour points.
Last year’s points classification winner Michele Scarponi (Lampre-ISD) has confirmed his participation, with others like world champion Mark Cavendish (Sky Procycling), Philippe Gilbert (BMC Racing Team), Swiss champion Fabian Cancellara (RadioShack Nissan Trek), Italian champion Giovanni Visconti (Movistar) and Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Cannondale) likely starters.
The route has something for everyone with sprinters and climbers having their opportunities. Similar to last year, the last stage will feature a 9.3km individual time trial. Last year’s final time trial was won by Cancellara with Evans finishing twelfth but doing enough to secure overall victory.