Green Teams

When Team Sky first started in 2010, they had a bad run of it. Wet behind the ears, they struggled to achieve any note-worthy results in their first year as a pro team and finished 15th as a team. In their second year pro, Brad Wiggins stepped up as a serious GC contender in multiple races, with riders like Geraint Thomas and Edvald Boasson Hagen vying for Tour de France white and stage wins on the side. This year Wiggins looks set to become Cadel Evans' main rival for the Tour de France title, while Thomas and Boasson Hagen each look equally dangerous in their respective fields. So it's safe to say that the team had something of a slow but steady learning curve. Now there's another new team on the block, but the only thing green about this team is their name and their jersey.

GreenEDGE didn't exactly have the hopes of the world resting on its shoulders in this, its first season. The first big race of the year was the national championships, but with GreenEDGE having signed about half of the pro Australian riders it was unsurprising that GreenEDGE's Simon Gerrans took out the national road title, with young track star Luke Durbridge taking out the time trial crown. A few weeks later came the first of the UCI Tours for the year, the home race Tour Down Under, and there was not so much an expectation that the team would win as pressure to do so - which they did. Simon Gerrans, fresh from the nationals, pulled on the ochre jersey following the race's queen stage and held it throughout the final crit.

A brief stop at the Tour of Qatar, where GreenEDGE managed a top-10 finish with Lithuanian Aidis Kruopis, and then it was off to Europe, where the Aussies really began turning heads. The team split up to ride the stage races of Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico, where Gerro opened the team's Europe account with a second place on stage three of Paris-Nice. The following day it was the Tirreno-Adriatico team's turn to hold the cycling world's attention. The boys blitzed the time trial - impressive when you consider they'd only trained for it together once - but more impressive was the 17-second lead they had to Garmin-Barracuda and Radioshack-Nissan-Trek and the 23-second lead over fourth-placed Team Sky, the three teams which, with BMC, dominated the Tour de France time trial last year. GreenEDGE was ecstatic. The neo team from one of Britain's colonies had made them look like they couldn't find their socks in time.

But it was about to get better. The defending champion of Italian monument Milano-San Remo was GreenEDGE's Matt Goss, and the team were wondering if Gossie could go one-two. Instead the team went one better. Not having the legs himself, Gossie handed his title over to teammate, Gerro of the impeccable form. The team car exploded with DS Matt White's excitement.

However even Milano-San Remo seemed to be nothing more than a high-class warmup for the neopro team. Eight riders, led by Allan Davis and Michael Albasini, headed off to Spain for the Volta a Catalunya, while the rest of the team headed off to train for other upcoming races such as E3-Harelbeke and Gent-Wevelgem. The GreenEDGE fans in the southern hemisphere woke to good news the next morning - Michael Albasini had grown some wings overnight and taken out the first stage of the Volta. Clearly one wasn't enough for him, because Albasini went back-to-back and took out the second stage as well. With a two-stage lead, the GC suddenly looked defensible, so the team went for it - and got it. +100 points in the team kitty. Then the team decided to up the ante a notch. Instead of a one-two win on stages, Daryl Impey and Allan Davis went one-two on the second stage of the Vuelta al Pais Vasco and left the other teams fighting for third place.

It isn't just the men's team either. GreenEDGE also established a women's team at the same time as building a ProTour men's team, and the girls have also made a name for themselves rather quickly too. For a new team they've certainly won their share of races, especially the WorldTour ones, and it's fair to say that GreenEDGE have shown their critics why they were awarded a ProTour licence in their first year out of the stables. They certainly haven't shown any signs of stopping, either.