Top American cyclist Tejay van Garderen on Wednesday told the USA Pro Challenge he would race the Vuelta a España instead of returning to defend his back-to-back titles, saying he needed to prove himself on the large scale afforded by racing a grand tour.
The decision is a blow for Colorado’s 5-year-old, week-long stage race, but it was not surprising. Van Garderen, who lives in Aspen part-time, while sitting in third place overall after suffering from exhaustion brought on by a respiratory illness.
“It’s something that we anticipated was a possibility,” said Shawn Hunter, CEO of the Pro Challenge. “And although we’re disappointed he won’t be defending his title, we understand his needs to compete in the grand tour based on the results of the Tour de France.
“We wish him the best and look forward to having him back.”
Teams entering the Pro Challenge will begin filing rosters to race officials Wednesday night and over the next few days. Hunter, who promised another field filled with cyclists who raced in the Tour, said roster announcements could come as soon as Friday.
“This is 100 percent my decision. It would be nice to go out and try to win the USA Pro Challenge again,” . “But after what happened at the Tour, I need to prove myself on a bigger scale.”
Van Garderen was poised to finish on the podium at the Tour, cycling’s pre-eminent race, after finishing fifth in 2012 and 2014. He last raced the Vuelta in 2010. Australian cyclist Richie Porte, who served as Tour winner Chris Froome’s primary domestique, is expected to join BMC next year, a move that would put pressure on Van Garderen to produce better results at the world level. Winning the Pro Challenge a third time wouldn’t do much for his stock.
“Due to his illness and withdrawal from this year’s Tour de France, we had an opportunity to reconsider what was best for Tejay in the coming months,” said Jim Ochowicz, president and general manager of van Garderen’s BMC Racing team. “The management team supports Tejay’s decision to participate in this year’s Vuelta.”
Conflicts on the race calendar are common and allow teams to send riders to different events. The Giro d’Italia, the first world tour race of the season, conflicts with the Tour of California. The Vuelta — the last of the cycling season’s three grand Tours — begins Aug. 22 with a 4.6-mile team time trial at Porto Banus and ends Sept. 13. The USA Pro Challenge .
“But after looking at the route and considering what happened at the Tour, all things just seemed to point in the direction that the Vuelta was the path to take,” van Garderen wrote in the statement. “The more I have thought about it, the more excited I am about doing it. It is a great new challenge.”
The field at the Pro Challenge has been deeper than the Vuelta in years past, Hunter said. Twice in the last four years, the winner of the Tour de France has competed at the Pro Challenge and foregone the Vuelta. That’s mostly because of the difficulty of riding two three-week races with limited recovery time between.
Van Garderen is the United States’ top cyclist and . He was raised in Great Falls, Mont., but spent his senior year at Rocky Mountain High School in Fort Collins — where this year’s sixth stage ends — after his father moved there to start an architecture firm. He lived in Boulder before moving to Aspen, his wife’s childhood home, where he lives outside the cycling season.
Daniel Petty: 303-954-1081, dpetty@denverpost.com or
Update July 30, 2015, 5:13 p.m. Originally, because of a reporting error, the date that Tejay van Garderen dropped out of the Tour de France was incorrect. It was July 22.
