2011 BMC Racing Team season Manager John Lelangue One-day victories 1 Stage race overall victories 4 Stage race stage victories 6 Previous season • Next season
The 2011 season for the began in January with the Tour Down Under and ended in October at the Giro di Lombardia. As a UCI ProTeam, they were automatically invited and obligated to send a squad to every event in the UCI World Tour.
Team captain Cadel Evans provided the majority of their victories in 2011, most notably the overall crown at the Tour de France. Twice a runner-up at that race, and at age 34 the oldest post-World War II winner, Evans took used a different race program than he had in previous years. He rode relatively few races prior to the Tour, though he was also the overall victor at Tirreno–Adriatico and the Tour de Romandie.
Though often considered to be a team with a strong classics pedigree, and active in most races with several top tens, they did not win any single-day race in the spring season. Greg Van Avermaet won the late-season Paris–Tours, along with two stages in stage races earlier in the season. The team's ostensible classics leader, Italian Alessandro Ballan, did not win any race in 2011 and was again briefly suspended from racing pursuant to the ongoing Mantova doping investigation, as he had been in 2010.
2011 roster Ages as of January 1, 2011.
Riders who joined the team for the 2011 season Rider2010 teamYannick Eijssenneo-proAmaël MoinardTaylor Phinneystagiaire ()Manuel QuinziatoTimothy RoeTrek-LivestrongIvan SantaromitaJohann TschoppGreg Van Avermaet
Riders who left the team during or after the 2010 season Rider2011 teamThomas FreiSuspendedCole HouseRealcyclist.comJackson StewartRetiredAlexandre MoosBMC Mountain BikingFlorian StalderRetiredScott NydamRetired
One-day races
Spring classics BMC was active at two of the traditional season-opening races, attaining seventh place with Ballan in the Italian opener Trofeo Laigueglia, and eighth with Quinziato in the Belgian opener, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. Ballan narrowly missed victory a week later at Montepaschi Strade Bianche, finishing second at the line behind Philippe Gilbert. Ballan acknowledged that Gilbert and not he had used the optimal tactics in the final sprint, but felt nonetheless pleased with his early-season form. The two had been part of a 19-rider group that made all the selections through the sectors of unpaved roads before the finish on cobblestones in Siena.
At the first monument race of the season, Milan–San Remo, BMC was one of only two teams to have more than three riders present in the leading group on the road after a crash on the Le Manie climb from the finish effectively split the field in two. With both teams lacking field sprinters, and with sprinters Tom Boonen, Alessandro Petacchi, and Heinrich Haussler surviving the split, BMC captain Ballan and 's Vincenzo Nibali struck a deal that they would each send men to the front of the lead group to help keep it away from the sprinters left behind in the second group, and dislodge the sprinters in the first group if possible. The tactic worked; with domestiques from both these teams, plus , pulling at the head of the leading group, they kept their lead through to the end of the race. Ballan, and Nibali, later figured into a crucial eight-rider selection that took place on the Poggio just a few kilometers from the end of the day of racing. Those eight riders represented eight different teams, so no one had a teammate to perform a proper leadout. After Nibali, Gilbert, and 's Yoann Offredo opened up the sprint, Ballan was gapped off momentarily and could manage only fourth behind race winner Matthew Goss. Van Avermaet had also been with the first group after the split on Le Manie, and occupied first position on the road for the kilometers between the Cipressa and the descent from the Poggio, before he was caught by the select group of eight that finished together at the head of the race.
At the second monument, the Tour of Flanders, BMC was noted to be bringing a strong squad, headed by Ballan and Hincapie. Burghardt and Van Avermaet went on the attack in the early portions of the race, only to be brought back after a short while. When Fabian Cancellara put in an attack on the Leberg, the day's fourteenth cobbled climb, and quickly took a sizable time gap, it was the BMC team which organized the chase to bring him back. They placed four riders into a seven-rider chase group and succeeded in bringing Cancellara back, something which has usually not happened to him in classics races. A further two riders had remained at the head of the peloton, giving them six riders at the front of the race when Cancellara was caught. Cancellara put in another move on the Muur van Geraardsbergen and was followed only by Sylvain Chavanel and eventual race winner Nick Nuyens. Hincapie finished with the group 5 seconds back for sixth place on the day. Kristoff rode to seventh place in the sprinters' classic Scheldeprijs later in April, back of three-time winner Mark Cavendish.
Ballan also rode to a top-ten placing at the third monument, Paris–Roubaix. He and Thor Hushovd marked the accelerations of odds-on favorite Cancellara throughout the day and, with both having teammates up the road in breakaway groups, did not contribute any work. This led to the lightly heralded Johan Vansummeren from Hushovd's team winning the race from a solo escape, but Ballan was able to finish sixth by staying with Cancellara as best he could, losing contact only when Cancellara put in his most strenuous attack near the finish. The race came just days after Ballan was again named in the ongoing Mantova doping investigation as a rider who may have perpetrated blood doping while riding for his former team Lampre. Unlike in 2010, when these accusations broke, BMC chose not to suspend Ballan from competition. Ballan felt his suspension in 2010 was because the team had not yet attained the highest level in the sport and had to rely on wildcard invitations to attend top-level races. In 2011, they had attained UCI ProTeam status and were therefore guaranteed these invites. However, team president Jim Ochowicz denied that this was the case, saying that the team had cleared Ballan in 2010 and that the 2011 accusations were not new and therefore did not require any action on their part. However, Ballan and Santambrogio were indeed suspended and later reactivated around the time of the Giro d'Italia.
Van Avermaet was the team's top finisher at each of the Ardennes classics, though he did not come especially close to victory in any of them, finishing 24th at the 2011 Amstel Gold Race, 16th at La Flèche Wallonne, and seventh at Liège–Bastogne–Liège, the fourth monument. BMC's record at the early-season single day races ended with a series of near misses in May and June. Murphy, an essentially unknown rider on the international scene, was the sixth-place finisher at the inaugural ProRace Berlin. BMC and were the only top-level professional teams in the race. Santambrogio was second at the Giro della Toscana, losing out to 's Dan Martin in the uphill final sprint. Van Avermaet narrowly missed the podium at Halle–Ingooigem, losing the sprint for third place to 's Gianni Meersman and taking fourth on the day.
The team also sent squads to the Classica Sarda, Kuurne–Brussels–Kuurne, the Giro del Friuli, Dwars door Vlaanderen, Gent–Wevelgem, and Brabantse Pijl, but finished no higher than 13th in any of these races.
Fall races Van Avermaet opened the team's later season with a podium finish at the Clásica de San Sebastián, winning a seven-rider sprint for third place 14 seconds back of the day's winner Philippe Gilbert. Much like he had earlier in the season at Scheldeprijs, Kristoff finished in the top ten but not especially close to victory at the sprinters' classic Paris–Brussels in September, taking seventh place in a 46-rider sprint. He turned in a similar performance a week later at the Championship of Flanders, seventh from a 55-rider sprint, and two days hence at the Grand Prix d'Isbergues with fifth from a group of 57. He also added a second place, again in a large sprint, at the Grand Prix de Fourmies. Murphy took his second top-ten finish of the year at the Omloop van het Houtland, with sixth place in a breakaway sprint behind Guillaume Van Keirsbulck of . Van Avermaet and Phinney finished at the front of the race in Binche–Tournai–Binche, though neither threatened for victory, finishing seventh and 13th in the 13-rider lead group.
Van Avermaet took the team's lone single-day victory of the season at Paris–Tours. Despite the expectation that the race would come down to a sprint finish, Van Avermaet and other attackers provided for a different sort of finish. The sprinters' teams worked to chase down the morning breakaway, but the only effect this actually had was allowing Van Avermaet, and others, a shorter distance to bridge from the main field up to the front of the race. The leading group's advantage over the peloton never exceeded two minutes, but it proved to be enough as Van Avermaet took the win ahead of 's Marco Marcato, with the next rider a further 15 seconds down. Van Avermaet was also the team's best finisher at the Italian races which traditionally conclude the season. He just missed out on victory at the Giro del Piemonte, finishing second of 11 riders in a breakaway sprint behind Daniel Moreno of . He was more distant, 12th, in the Giro di Lombardia, though this was nonetheless a strong result for him due to that race's much hillier profile.
The team also sent squads to Vattenfall Cyclassics, the GP Ouest-France, the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal, the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec, and the Grand Prix de Wallonie, but finished no higher than 14th in any of these races.
Stage races
Evans took the team's first wins at Tirreno–Adriatico. Despite the fact that he had raced only two days prior to Tirreno–Adriatico on the 2011 season, as part of a planned light program meant to culminate in victory at the Tour de France, Evans showed fine form at the race of the two seas. He finished near the front of the race in the first two hilly stages, both of them in length, and took the race lead after the second of them. The next day, he won the stage into Macerata, extending his race lead to nine seconds. With only a very short individual time trial remaining, and the riders directly behind Evans in the overall standings lesser than him in time trial skills, nine seconds was a significant advantage. Evans managed only 12th in the race against the clock that closed out the race, but this was easily enough to preserve his overall victory. In April, Evans won the Tour de Romandie without winning any stage. His greatest time win came in the stage 4 individual time trial. Sitting third at that point, he finished eighth on the day and took sufficient time to overtake Pavel Brutt and Alexander Vinokourov to move into the race lead. The flat final stage provided for no meaningful changes to the overall standings, securing Evans' win. While he did not win anything at the Critérium du Dauphiné, Evans showed strongly at that race as well. While Bradley Wiggins proved by far the strongest of the overall classification riders in the stage 3 individual time trial, Evans' sixth place on the day moved him up to second overall. He finished sufficiently near the front of the race on all other days as well, assuring him second place overall in the event.