Ochowicz: CCC Team didn't have the head count for the Classics
CCC Team general manager Jim Ochowicz said his team will look to bolster its Classics roster for next year in order to better support star rider Greg Van Avermaet, who netted just two Classics podium finishes this year after having previously won Paris-Roubaix, Gent-Wevelgem, the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and the E3 Harelbeke.
"We didn't have the head count to fight the battle with other teams that had a little more ammunition than us," Ochowicz told Cyclingnews on Sunday in Sacramento after the finish of stage 1 of the Tour of California.
"A one-rider shot at the Classics is a little tough. You can see it with other teams, too, that have the same thing we've got to fight with. But we still get our piece of the cake every once in awhile, and our plan is to really build up a little bit more for 2020, and probably lighten that load a little bit for Greg and some others in that situation."
Van Avermaet managed second at the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad – a race he won in 2017 and 2016 – and he was third at the E3 BinckBank Classic, but the 2016 Olympic road race champion wasn't able to add another line to his already-impressive Classics palmares for the second consecutive year.
Ochowicz's CCC Team, which rose from the ashes of the former CCC Sprandi Polkowice Pro Continental team and the former BMC Racing WorldTour team, has notched four wins so far this season, with Van Avermaet taking wins at the Volta a Valencia and the Tour de Yorkshire, and Paddy Bevin winning the New Zealand time trial title and stage 2 of the Tour Down Under.
It's a bit of a slower win pace than Ochowicz was used to at BMC, but he said that things have been going well for his new project.
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