BMC Racing en route to winning the team time trial at Eneco Tour(Image credit: Courtesy of Polartec-Kometa)
Greg Van Avermaet leads the charge for BMC during the stage 5 time trial at Eneco Tour(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
The BMC squad won the team classification(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Rohan Dennis on the Eneco Tour podium after BMC won the team time trial stage(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
The BMC Racing Team is sticking to a tried and true formula for the 40km UCI Road World Championships team time trial, bringing back five of the six members who won the race last year in Richmond.
Rohan Dennis, Daniel Oss and Manuel Quinziato - all of whom were also on the 2014 Worlds-winning team - and Taylor Phinney and Stefan Küng are joined by newcomer Joey Rosskopf. Rosskopf will also compete for the US national team in the elite men's road race.
The team face reduced competition in the event. After threats of a wholesale boycott by WorldTour teams, ultimately 10 squads agreed to compete, including the top eight teams from 2015 plus AG2R La Mondiale and Katusha.
BMC Sports Director Jackson Stewart says the team has a 'very good chance' of defending their world title.
"As defending champions there is a lot of expectation on our team to win for the third consecutive year but I think we're lining up with a very good chance of defending our title. We have a great team of pure individual time trialists, who together have really perfected the art of the team time trial, so much so that it was difficult to make the final selection of six riders," Stewart said.
The BMC team won the eight-man 20.9km team time trial at the Eneco Tour last month with all six of the Worlds team plus Greg Van Avermaet and Tom Bohli. With the Belgian focused on the elite men's road race, Bohli will act as a reserve for the six-man team in Doha.
"We know our form is good, which we saw when these six riders were part of the winning team at the Eneco Tour TTT just weeks ago," Stewart said. "At this point we have done everything possible in terms of training and perfecting our equipment, and the riders will race the BMC Timemachine 01 which was unveiled this week. It all comes down to executing the 40km time trial as best as possible and I think we have the right team for that."
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Quinziato has been a part of the BMC TTT squad since the event was introduced to the Worlds programme in 2012, and was part of the team's evolution from contenders to repeat champions.
"It's a special event because the Team Time Trial is really complicated," Quinziato said. "It's usually an individual sport and here the rules change completely and actually it's probably the most stressful event that we ride so it's going to be hard. The easiest one was probably in Ponferrada because no one expected anything from us, but last year was tough and this year will be even more because we're the favourites."
"We know we're going to have to fight to the line and probably the podium places will be only 5 or 6 seconds apart, so everything will count. We're really focused and for sure we're ready to give everything we have on Sunday."
BMC Racing for UCI Road World Championship Team Time Trial: Rohan Dennis (AUS), Stefan Küng (SUI), Daniel Oss (ITA), Taylor Phinney (USA), Manuel Quinziato (ITA), Joey Rosskopf (USA). Reserve: Tom Bohli (SUI)
The UCI Road World Championships begin in Doha on October 9 with the elite women's team time trial followed by the men at 2:15PM local time.
