FORMER GIRO WINNER Ryder Hesjedal will be using Garmin-Sharp’s misfortunate as motivation after the team fell victim to disastrous wet conditions in Belfast yesterday.
For the second time in the space of a month, Irish star Dan Martin’s hopes of victory were dashed after crashing heavily during the early stages.
The pre-race favourite also took down four of his team-mates, including Koldo Fernandez, who, like Martin, broke his collarbone, Nathan Haas and Andre Cardoso.
Garmin-Sharp are well off the pace, almost four minutes behind Orica-GreenEDGE, but Hesjedal has not given up just yet.
“We will regroup and refocus – we have a strong team here and we’re fighters,” said the Canadian.
“We will look for opportunities for the rest of the race and do everything we can to make Dan and Koldo proud.
“We may be down, but don’t count us out. These are moments that we will use as motivation to push us forward.”
Meanwhile, the BMC team opened their Giro d’Italia campaign seven seconds adrift of Orica-GreenEDGE, who took out the eventful 21.7-kilometre stage thanks to Svein Tuft’s triumph in Belfast.
Omega Pharma-Quick Step pipped BMC to second spot by just two seconds as wet weather wreaked havoc throughout the day. However, BMC managed to steer clear of any severe damage as their Australian rider led the team ahead of rivals Nairo Quintana (Movistar) and Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha).
“For the general classification, I think our result is quite promising,” said Evans, who topped the points classification at the event in 2010.
“We have already made some time gains to some of the favourites and that is really favourable for the overall. We can look at it in two ways, we have a lot of mountains to go and so it might not mean that much.
“But, after only 20km of racing to have these time gaps has put us in the right direction. It’s a nice boost for the guys. I’m really happy with how they rode.”
