Tejay van Garderen will be the BMC Racing leader at Tirreno-Adriatico. He told Cyclingnews about his physical condition and his goal. The American will be ready to race aggressively and he hopes to win the race.

"Fitness wise I feel good. If we were lining up for the USA Pro Cycling challenge, then I don’t think these guys would beat me. But home court advantage means a lot. I’m going to stick the favourite tag on Vincenzo but I think I’m going to challenge him really well", he told.

"The end of last season went pretty poorly, with exciting from the Tour and then taking an even earlier exit from the Vuelta. But I feel I started my work a little bit earlier this year and it feels like it’s definitely paid off. I think I came into the season well. I’m feeling really good and came into this one strong and I think we’ve got a shot at victory."

Last month, he missed the victory at the Vuelta a Andalucia. He underestimated Valverde’s attack. "You can look at Andalucia (the Ruta del Sol) in a bunch of different ways. One is that Alejandro had home court advantage and he knew when the climb got hard. I was just thinking that when he went it was too far, that he’d die and I’d make my move with three kilometres to go and probably catch him. But when I hit out and went after him it was too late. He was very strong too and held out that gap. Home court advantage means a lot."

He finished 2nd overall. "I was counting the other day. I definitely have a lot of second places but I also have a lot of nice victories too. I think my wins balance out my second places."

Tirreno-Adriatico will kick off with a flat team time trial along the Tyrrhenian coast and it will be important to be ready right from the gun. "The time trial is flat, 22km is not much, but perhaps you can gain ten seconds on some rivals. Nibali has a strong team, Movistar usually brings a strong team, so I don’t think the gaps will be that big. I’m not sure who Purito has with him at Katusha but perhaps we can get a bit more time on guys like him. I think six of the eight guys are world champions in the team time trial. We’ll have a strong team and if we can take a few seconds there, then it’s all the better."