he seized the Pink jersey and was able to defend his lead for the remainder of the race becoming the first American to win the Giro. Ochowicz is a controversial figure, because it has been alleged by journalist David Walsh (who reported for many years on the Lance Armstrong doping case) and by Floyd Landis (original winner of the 2006 Tour de France before having this title stripped for anti-doping violations, and teammate of Lance Armstrong at the US Postal Service Cycling Team) that Ochowicz, during his time leading USA Cycling, knew about the doping undertaken by Armstrong and the rest of the US Postal team. It has also been "alleged" by Lance Armstrong that Ochowicz, during his time in charge of the Motorola Cycling Team (which Armstrong then rode for), orchestrated a $100,000 bribe to the rival Coors Light team in return for the Coors team deliberately losing three individual races in 1993, so that Armstrong could win. In 2007 he began the BMC Racing Team, which first competed on the international professional cycling circuit in 2010. A major signing for the team was Australian rider Cadel Evans, who had been among the general classification favorites in several previous editions of the Tour. He showed promise in the 2010 Giro d'Italia, where he held the pink jersey for a stage, won a stage, won the overall Points Classification and placed 5th overall, but his performance in the 2010 Tour was disappointing as he finished about an hour behind the winner. In the 2011 Tour de France Evans was in top form. Going into the final ITT on stage 20 he was +0:04 behind Fränk Schleck and just under a minute behind Andy Schleck. Evans finished 2nd on the stage but easily overcame the deficits to the Schleck brothers and became Tour champion. The following year Evans finished 7th but a promising up and comer, Tejay van Garderen finished in 5th place and won the white jersey awarded to the best young rider. Van Garderen would finish 5th again in the 2014 Tour de France and in 2015 he was in position to finish on the podium when he became sick late in the race and had to abandon. For the 2016 season Ochowicz signed Richie Porte, who had been a super-domestique for Chris Froome on Team Sky to co-lead the team with van Garderen. BMC also had several other