Silver double for ORICA-GreenEDGE and ORICA-AIS

ORICA-GreenEDGE and ORICA-AIS have won silver in the team time trial events at the UCI Road Cycling World Championships in Ponferrada, Spain today.

A strong finish pulled ORICA-GreenEDGE onto the podium but it wasn’t enough to top a dominant BMC Racing who won by over 30seconds.

Meanwhile, a perfectly executed race by ORICA-AIS this morning saw them improve on last year’s bronze effort.  More on the women’s team time trial can be found below.

The six-man ORICA-GreenEDGE outfit, including Brett Lancaster (AUS), Damien Howson (AUS), Jens Mouris (NED), Luke Durbridge (AUS), Michael Hepburn (AUS) and Svein Tuft (CAN), went into the championships with high hopes of a gold medal but settled for silver for the second consecutive year.

“It was definitely a lot tougher than we thought pre-riding the course. The last 10-15km was just a boxing match and it was really hard coming home.”

As the team completed the final stages of the 57.1km course the weather began to turn but it didn’t affect the strength of the outfit’s finish.

Sitting fifth fastest at the first intermediate split, ORICA-GreenEDGE put the foot down to move into fourth position at the second and third time checks before one of the strongest finishes of the day moved them onto the second step of the podium.

ORICA-AIS has pulled together a stunning ride to take out the silver medal in the team time trial at the 2014 UCI Road Cycling World Championships in Ponferrada, Spain this morning.

The outfit rode the 36.15km course to perfection, the result a culmination of training camps and recce rides in preparation for one of the season’s biggest focuses. 

The six women team, including Amanda Spratt (AUS), Annette Edmondson (AUS), Emma Johansson (SWE), Jessie MacLean (AUS), Melissa Hoskins (AUS) and Valentina Scandolara (ITA) stopped the clock at 44minutes 50seconds, one minute 17seconds behind that set by gold medalists Specialized-Lululemon.

“We pulled out a really good ride and we got everything right today,” Johansson said.