Did Tejay van Garderen’s Giro Stage Win Give Him Another Shot as a Tour Contender?

The American cyclist’s first-ever Giro d’Italia stage win will either relieve the pressure on him to ascend pro ranks - or add to it.


Joe Lindsey |

The American cyclist’s first-ever Giro d’Italia stage win will either relieve the pressure on him to ascend pro ranks – or add to it. – By Joe Lindsey

Tejay van Garderen celebrates winning Stage 18 of the 2017 Giro d'Italia—his first Giro stage win. Tim de Waele via Getty
Tejay van Garderen celebrates winning Stage 18 of the 2017 Giro d’Italia—his first Giro stage win. Tim de Waele via Getty
Was it joy, or relief, or a mix of both? American pro cyclist Tejay van Garderen (BMC Racing) won the 18th stage of the Giro d’Italia on Thursday, outsprinting breakaway companion Mikel Landa at the finish line and promptly burst into tears.This Giro has been a waypoint of sorts for van Garderen, both a beginning and an end. The end was to his hopes for overall victory, and perhaps as a Grand Tour contender at all. But his stage win jumbled that, and offers him a chance for a fresh start. The question is: as what?A Career at a Crossroad
Van Garderen came to the Giro as both a hopeful and a man under pressure. Although just 28 years old, his career seemed at a crossroad; his progress stalled and plateaued the past two seasons amid a frustrating series of setbacks. The most notable happened in 2015 when, sitting third overall in the third week of the Tour de France, van Garderen was stunningly dropped early on Stage 17 due to a respiratory infection and abandoned the race. “I want to just disappear right now,” said an anguished van Garderen afterward.That offseason, van Garderen—once the powerful BMC team’s Grand Tours leader—saw the team that once supported him completely hire a rival, Richie Porte, as its main focus for the 2016 Tour de France.And even at this year’s Giro, van Garderen entered as co-leader with Australian Rohan Dennis. The message from the team to its one-time star was as clear as it was unstated: It’s time to deliver, and if you can’t, we have other plans.

The Giro Test
Through the first week, van Garderen was ideally placed: 11th overall, and on the same time as his primary rivals entering what would be the first crucial mountain stage. Dennis had already been forced out of the race with crash injuries; unfortunate, but from a colder point of view, the team no longer had a split focus. Then, a minor disaster over two days: Distanced on Stage 9’s Blockhaus summit finish, and then a day later in a time trial that should have suited him, a disappointing 43rd. Now almost eight minutes behind race leader Tom Dumoulin (who later suffered from a much-covered gastric event), van Garderen’s hopes for overall victory were crushed.

Improvement for any athlete is rarely a straight line, but for van Garderen, his career has more resembled the course profile of a mountain stage in this Giro.

In an interview with VeloNews’ Andrew Hood, van Garderen sounded mystified and despondent. “Right now, my body is kind of failing,” he said. “I don’t know why.” It was a statement we’d heard before: In 2013 at the Tour, his body simply seemed to not respond when asked to race hard. There was no ready explanation, no illness or crash or obvious setback; his training leading up the Giro had been perfect, as he put it. “Sometimes I tell myself, maybe I am not a Grand Tour rider,” he said, in a moment of brutally honest self-reflection.

Forced to refocus his goals, van Garderen jumped in the Stage 17 breakaway but didn’t make the winning final selection. So the next day, he tried again. This time, success: He broke clear on the final descent with Landa. “We looked around and saw that it was just us and we decided to keep going,” said van Garderen of the impromptu move.

Into the final kilometre, the pair were pursued by a fierce chase but held the advantage, with van Garderen boldly pushing past Landa on the inside in the last sweeping bend and opening an unbeatable sprint to the line. At which point came the tears.

“It was emotional, because I’ve had so many trials these past few years,” he said at the finish.

Always On the Verge of Greatness—Not Yet There
Van Garderen has always been a rider under pressure, internal and external. He’s been tipped for great things since his first pro season, in 2010, when he finished third in the Criterium du Dauphiné, a crucial pre-Tour prep event. In 2012, he finished fifth in the Tour and won the race’s best young rider competition.

Since, he’s been uneven, alternately steadily solid and unpredictably combustible. Not all the pressure is external, but van Garderen struggles to deal with it. “I don’t even look at cycling web sites anymore,” he told VeloNews. Twice now, he’s created and then deleted public social media accounts.

But more frustrating to him is the mercurial nature of his results. Improvement for any athlete is rarely a straight line, but for van Garderen, his career has more resembled the course profile of a mountain stage in this Giro.

He has been fifth at the Tour—twice! He has won three stage races in his career and hit the podium in countless others. And now, he’s won one of the hardest stages in a Grand Tour, his biggest victory ever. So the rollercoaster ride continues.

Where, a week ago, he was inconsolable and filled with doubt, now he voices hope.

“It feels good,” he said of his win. “It is good to know that I’m still capable of doing a ride like that. And now I just have to put it all together into three weeks like I have done in the past and like I know I can do again.”

Where Tejay’s Going
Can he do it again? The temptation is clear: The apex of the sport is the Grand Tours, and for an American racer in particular, to be a Tour de France contender dwarfs all else. It’s not van Garderen’s fault that Americans don’t care about or have never heard of the Volta Catalunya (where he won stages in 2014 and 2015).

But he does have to decide if that matters to him. And he and BMC have to decide if the team—just the second he’s ever had in his eight-year career–is still the right place for him.

He’s only 28, but for pro cyclists, that’s prime age. There are not many more chances for him, and the field is crowded with younger riders approaching greatness, like current leader Dumoulin, or Nairo Quintana, in second place. Time is not on his side.

Van Garderen has to decide: Does he really think he can be a Grand Tour rider? If so, what does he need to do in order to prove it? And if the answer is no, is he okay with that?

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