AFP, Utrecht :
Australians Orica-GreenEdge have a very clear plan for the Tour de France and it doesn’t involve trying to get their hands on the yellow jersey. Last year, team leader Simon Gerrans came into the race believing he had a great chance of taking the yellow jersey on one of the early stages but was caught up in a crash involving Mark Cavendish on the first stage and forced out of the race.
With the first stage this time around being a time trial, Gerrans said it would likely prove too difficult for the team to get their hands on the leader’s jersey and as they have no designs on overall victory, it will be stage wins occupying their thoughts for three weeks.
“As far as realistic goals, we’ve been pretty adamant we’re chasing stage wins and GC (overall victory) is not even on our radar this year,” said the 35-year-old Gerrans, a two-time stage winner who was in yellow for two days in 2013. “I don’t think we’ll be looking too closely at that part of the classification each day. With the lineup we have here, we’re more suited to going for stage victories at this point.” Orica manager Matt White said he believes young British twins Simon and Adam Yates could one day have overall victory hopes but at just 22 years of age, they are not yet ready for that responsibility.
“The biggest thing for us is to leave an impact on the race, that would be our number one goal and as Simon says: stage wins. One stage would be pleasing, multiple stage wins even more so,” said White.
“As far as GC it’s not a goal and never has been a goal. As I said before, it would be pretty unprofessional of us to put pressure on the Yates boys, who we see as GC talents, in their first Tour de France that they’re hoping to finish. “They’ve shown throughout the year and since joining the team that they’re very capable of achieving some great results against the best guys in the world, but that’s for stage victories not GC.”
