Congratulations to Garmin – Cervelo’s Cameron Meyer on his win at the 2011 Tour Down Under. It was nice to see a Garmin rider win, especially since 2010 was such a difficult year for them. With the merging of Garmin – Transitions with the Cervelo team, the new team should be very strong and competitive in 2011.
Meyer took the ochre jersey as it were, the leader’s jersey, when he won the 4th Stage. He held on to win the Tour Down Under by 2 seconds over Matt Goss with HTC-Highroad.
Meyer is Australian and appears to be quite the good find for Garmin – Cervelo. He was last year’s Australian cyclist of the year after winning three world titles on the track and has been the national time-trial champion the past two years.
In other news, Matt White, Director Sportif for Garmin – Transitions and this year, Garmin – Cervelo, was fired after the team took the TDU championship. The reason given for White being fired was that he broke team rules when he referred Garmin rider Trent Lowe to Dr. Luis Garcia del Moral in Spain. Interestingly, he was the U.S. Postal team physician from 1999 – 2003. White sent Lowe to Moral without the approval or knowledge of the Garmin medical staff. Garmin has the strictest anti-doping rules of probably any professional cycling team and the physician referral rule is part of that.
There may be more to the story, but for now that’s the story that’s being reported. Kudos to Garmin – Cervelo for adhering to team rules and making what had to be a difficult decision in an apparent effort to ensure their riders race clean.