American Tejay van Garderen eyes podium at Tour de France
Even though he faces considerable challenges in the days ahead, Tejay van Garderen is the USA's best hope to capture a Tour de France title since disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong won seven consecutive then was stripped of his victories.
In second place after 12 stages of the Tour de France, van Garderen is in position to claim a podium spot on the Champs-Elysées for the first time in his career if he can avoid disaster on the roads to Paris.
The 26-year-old cyclist for BMC Racing Team is nearly 3 minutes behind leader Chris Froome of Britain in the three-week Tour that ends July 26.
But there is more to van Garderen, a Colorado native, than his ability to crest the Pyrenees or navigate the peloton.
Despite his accomplishments at this year's Tour – the fifth of his career -- van Garderen comes across as understated and reserved in interviews with the media.
"There are a few guys I needed to mark because we're close on time and I feel like I did a good job staying close to them and staying in my limits," he told reporters after stage 12. "Yeah, it's all going to plan."
His style is far from the likes of cycling greats like Eddy Merckx, famously nicknamed "the Cannibal" who once claimed that he would eat the other riders alive.
That's just van Garderen's way, his father, Marcel says.
"Tejay was a little more brazen in the pro tours a few years ago, but he's never been one to pound his chest," Marcel van Garderen said this week in a phone interview.
For one thing, it's the way he raised his son.
"When Tejay ended up winning a big series of races when he was 11, I told him to always go up and shake the other riders' hands and congratulate them after a race," Marcel said. "I never really saw other riders doing that, and the ones who are winning should be the ones setting an example. If you have no competitors you have no race."
To say that van Garderen is polite, however, is not to say that he isn't a fiery opponent. From an early age, he turned workaday athletic activities into hard-fought contests. In interactions with his brother, he was especially determined to win, his father noted.
When van Garderen was about 11 or 12, he began to cycle competitively, taking on riders twice his age and often older. Marcel reflected that his son never really knew how to put those rides into perspective. The young cyclist never cared how much older, or more developed, his competitors were. He just wanted to win.
His rapid rise in the sport can be attributed to strong results in the professional peloton at the Tour and other top-tier races. In 2012 he won the best young rider classification and finished fifth overall. He also finished fifth in last year's Tour.
Widespread doping scandals have tarnished American cycling, wiping out names in the Tour's record books. After Armstrong, Levi Leipheimer was the last American to finish on the podium at the Tour in 2007. His results were later stripped because of doping violations.
If he can maintain during some tough stages in the Alps next week, Van Garderen has a chance to become the first American to earn a top-three result in the overall classification since Bobby Julich, who was third in 1998.
On the road, van Garderen rides with machine-like precision and pace. Like a diesel engine, he plays an efficient and consistent game, mounting climbs with fluidity rather than flare.
Simply put, he is a member of that rare breed of riders who can drive himself to the limit and just keep going.
"I never had to push Tejay to ride," Marcel said. "I usually had to be the one to rein him in. If I hadn't developed a training schedule for him, he would probably have just gotten on his bike whenever he felt like it. Riders who start young often burn out, and I wanted Tejay to be able to ride until he was in his thirties."
One earliest memories Marcel has of Tejay on a bike was when his son experienced his first bad crash at about age 5. The child cracked a tooth and was taken to the hospital. According to the father, his son didn't cry once.
Van Garderen's ability to play through the pain is certainly a part of why he's developed into a world-class rider. But off the road, and off the camera, the cycling superstar still retains characteristics of an affable, Colorado kid.
"The older Tejay gets the more careful he is with the things he says in public," Marcel said. "With interviews he's a lot more groomed, but if you're sitting with Tejay at the dinner table, he's a lot more open and he jokes a lot more. His current interviews show a lot more what others are saying, they're not authentic Tejay necessarily."
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