HTC-Columbia's Tejay Van Garderen is heading to the Critérium du Dauphiné this weekend in what the team says will be a test to show how the young talent might perform in a Grand Tour. The 21 year old has had an excellent start in his first season with the HTC-Columbia team. He rode to two second place finishes in stages at the Presidential Tour of Turkey to secure him second place overall, and put in an impressive ride at the recent Tour of California for team leader and eventual winner Michael Rogers.
"Tejay has done really well for a first year pro so far," says HTC-Columbia's sports director Allan Peiper. "He took second overall in the Tour of Turkey and he was instrumental in Mick Rogers victory in the Tour of California, too. The Dauphiné is going to be the highlight of his first half of the season.
"It's like a mini-Tour de France, with three really tough mountain stages, an ascent of Alpe d'Huez, a 50 kilometre time trial, so we'll be able to find out a lot more about how he performs in that sort of racing environment."
The team says it will be careful not to put too much pressure on the American in his biggest stage race to date and, rather than having any particular expectations of Van Garderen, the team will take it day-by-day.
"I wouldn't call him our protected rider, we have got some very experienced three-week stage racers here as well. Konstantsin (Sivtsov) is on his way back up after the crash where he broke his collarbone and his wrist. And of course Bert [Grabsch] won the time trial stage here last year and will be targeting that stage again. At just over 50 kilometres, it's very much his kind of distance."
The Critérium du Dauphiné starts this Sunday in Evians-les-Bains in France.
HTC-Columbia for the 2010 Dauphiné Libéré:
Lars Bak (Den); Gert Dockx (Bel); Bert Grabsch (Ger); Patrick Gretsch (Ger), Aleksej Saramotins (Lat), Konstantsin Sivtsov (Byl); Peter Velits (Svk); Tejay Van Garderen (USA)