Brent Bookwalter finished runner-up overall and the BMC Racing Team won the team classification Sunday at the inaugural edition of the Tour of Alberta. The results capped a week that saw the BMC Racing Team win two stages, finish runner-up on another, and place five riders in the top 20 overall.
Season Highlight For Bookwalter
Bookwalter finished 18 seconds behind race winner Rohan Dennis (Garmin-Sharp), who had edged him in a head-to-head sprint on Stage 3 that ultimately decided the top of the final standings.
Bookwalter said contesting the overall was an unexpected opportunity that will go down as one of the highlights of his season.
“It’s a nice reminder that success often comes when you don’t expect it and you have to be open to opportunities and kind of seize the day,” he said. “It means a lot in my development as a rider. I’ve had two second-place overalls this year, which are my best-ever GC (general classification) results. It’s nice confirmation of my improvement and, hopefully, I can keep going up from there.”
The result was Bookwalter’s fourth runner-up of the season, adding to silver medal-finishes at the USA Cycling national road and time trial championships in May and his second place overall at the Tour of Qatar in February.
Peter Sagan won the sprint on the streets of Downtown Calgary at the end of Sunday’s 129.4-kilometer race to earn his third stage win, while his Cannondale Pro Cycling teammate, Damiano Caruso, finished third overall.
Sixth Team Classification Victory
Four others from the BMC Racing Team joined Bookwalter in the top 20: Jakub Novak (11th), Steve Morabito (12th), Marcus Burghardt (13th) and Cadel Evans (17th).
Evans won Stage 4 Saturday while teammate Silvan Dillier – who was signed to a contract for the 2014 season by the BMC Racing Team Sunday – won Stage 2 on Thursday.
Amaël Moinard and Larry Warbasse were the seventh and eighth members of the squad that took home a team classification for the sixth time this season, adding to titles won at the USA Pro Challenge, Amgen Tour of California, Tour of Oman, Tour of Qatar and the Tour de San Luis.
BMC Racing Team Assistant Director Jackson Stewart said he could not have asked for much more in the way of results.
“Coming here, we were a little worried with how the courses were – that they weren’t super suited to our team,” he said. “We raced a little differently than normal, being aggressive and taking chances, and it paid off two days. And with the windy day, Brent capitalized on that. There were so many things that we weren’t even looking for that we got.”
Listen to complete comments from Bookwalter and Stewart on the BMC Racing Team Audio Line:
http://bit.ly/Vg94Oh
Ron Callahan is the chief cook and bottlewasher at Bike World News, doing everything from website design to bike reviews.