Team Garmin-Transitions’ competition director Matt White hosted VeloNews in the team car during Tyler Farrar’s win at the GP Scheldeprijs, discussing the upcoming Paris-Roubaix and more general thoughts on the team’s looking ahead.
Prior to Tyler Farrar’s win at the G.P. Scheldeprijs on Wednesday, VeloNews had a seat in the Garmin-Transitions car riding along with the team’s director, Australian Matt White. Over the squawk of race radio we talked about the team’s squad for Paris-Roubaix, Farrar’s development as a world-class sprinter, and White’s role in developing a pipeline for Australian riders to enter the ProTour ranks. Here’s a listen:
VeloNews: Did you ever compete in this race (G.P. Scheldeprijs) as a professional?
Matt White: Nope, this was actually my first time to Antwerp. Nice city.
VN: How do you rate the team’s performance over the past week — going back first to Three Days of De Panne and then to the Tour of Flanders?
MW: Well obviously we couldn’t be happier with De Panne. We won the overall, and had a stage win for David Millar and a stage win for Tyler Farrar. It was a good way to prepare for Flanders. Dave had a good ride at Flanders and was a bit unlucky to not come away with any results for himself, but once he was caught he jumped in and helped out and led Tyler to a fifth-place finish.
I couldn’t be happier with how Flanders went; Tyler was the best of the rest, winning the bunch sprint, and Dave figured in the crucial parts of the race.
VN: Before the race you said Martijn Maaskant and Johan Van Summeren were the team’s cards to play.
MW: It’s always good to have a bit of depth. When you’re looking at the form after De Panne, Tyler was always going to be there, it was a matter of just how big of a group would he be sprinting against. Last year it was sprinting for third, this year it was sprinting for fifth.
VN: The team took some lumps during the race — Martijn, Tyler, Svein Tuft and Steven Cozza all hit the deck. What were the injuries like?
MW: Yeah, we had a few guys touch down. Martijn hit a crack in the middle of the road while he was talking to the team car and lost control; he took three stitches to his elbow. Tyler went crashed twice, the second time into the back of a car, and thought about throwing in the towel. Svein crashed and had a concussion. Cozza … I’m not sure what happened with him, but it wasn’t too bad.
But yeah, half of our original Paris-Roubaix team is gone. Matt Wilson has some fractured ribs from Ghent-Wevelgem. He didn’t know they were fractured until he hit the cobbles at Flanders. He went home and trained on good roads and didn’t know he’d broken his ribs until he hit the cobbles and everything locked up and he started having trouble breathing. Robbie Hunter has an Achilles’ problem. Murillo Fischer crashed at Milan-San Remo and broke his collarbone. And Svein has a concussion.
More photos of Matt White:
