Tour de France, Stage 14: Van Garderen Sixth

Risoul, France

Tour de France, Stage 14: Van Garderen Sixth

Tejay van Garderen of the BMC Racing Team finished sixth on Saturday's mountain-top finish at the Tour de France to remain fifth overall while gaining time on one of the top contenders.

Attacks Distance Valverde

Van Garderen's attacks in the final four kilometers of the 177-km race helped distance second-placed Alejandro Valverde (Movistar Team), who lost 30 seconds to van Garderen and a minute to race leader Vincenzo Nibali (Astana Pro Team). Van Garderen finished 54 seconds after solo stage winner Rafal Majka (Tinkoff-Saxo) while conceding 30 seconds to Nibali and four seconds each to third-placed Romain Bardet (Ag2r La Mondiale) and fourth-placed Thibault Pinot (FDJ.fr).

"We were just trying to attack so we weren't towing guys along," van Garderen said. "It looked like Valverde kind of blew himself up a bit and it ended up being me and Pinot kind of trading pulls." Van Garderen said despite his gradual climb up the overall standings following crashes where he lost time on Stages 5 and 7, he is still not feeling 100 percent. "After the rest day I came down with a little bit of bronchitis," he said. "And the crashes – I think that kind of took away a little bit of my top end. After the re  st day and into the Pyreneses, I should bounce back a bit."

Teamwork For The Chase

The first selection of the second day in the Alps was made going downhill. Off the top of the Col d'Izoard – the highest point in this year's race – the Ag2r La Mondiale squad went on the attack. "We had a bit of a hairy moment there on the descent when Ag2r and Nibali all attacked," BMC Racing Team's Peter Stetina said. "That was a pretty dangerous move. Ag2r kept it going for quite a while. We had to pull the emergency cord to get Tejay back and we tried to keep him quiet so he could use all his energy on the final climb."

With the chasing efforts of Stetina, past Swiss road champion Michael Schär and Slovakian national time trial champion Peter Velits, the catch was made before the climb to the finish. "After two weeks, this was a good result, not only for Tejay but for the entire team," BMC Racing Team Sport Director Yvon Ledanois said. "Now we will look next week to the Pyrenees. It will be an important few days for the general classification."

Listen to complete comments from Ledanois and van Garderen on the BMC Racing Team's Tour de France Audio Line:
http://bit.ly/VhDrsx

Best regards,
BMC Racing Team

Sean Weide, Press Officer