Blythe signs to BMC Racing

Briton Adam Blythe has signed to BMC Racing team for the 2012 season, the US-based team confirmed on Wednesday. Blythe will join Omega Pharma-Lotto team-mates Philippe Gilbert and Klaas Lodewyck at the squad.

"We are pleased to welcome both Klaas and Adam to the BMC Racing Team family," said BMC Racing president and general manager Jim Ochowicz.

"They are both young talents that are fast, strong and ready to lend their skills to the BMC Racing Team. We will especially be looking to them to support our team leaders during the classics season and throughout the rest of the season."

Blythe added: "The BMC Racing Team wants to make me a better bike rider, which is what I really need at the moment."

"I would like to go for some stages in races like the Eneco Tour next year, but my main goal is to get onto the classics team. I think it will be very hard, though."

The exact length of Blythe's contract with BMC was not revealed.

Blythe won the Circuit Franco-Belge overall in 2010 after taking two stage wins. This season he achieved podium finishes in the Ster ZLM Tour, GP Stad Zottegem and Ronde van Drenthe. More importantly, Blythe has performed solid domestique duties for his Omega Pharma team-mates, not least the all-conquering Gilbert.

The Sheffield man left the British Cycling Olympic Academy in 2008, deciding to go it alone on the continental circuit with the help of funding from Cycling Time Trials. He was picked up as a stagiaire by Silence-Lotto at the end of 2009, where he was promptly offered a pro contract for 2010.

BMC has also signed Thor Hushovd from Garmin-Cervelo, and Marco Pinotti and Tejay Van Garderen from HTC-Highroad. The team also confirmed that it had re-signed Swiss rider Danilo Wyss. BMC's Cadel Evans won the Tour de France in July.

Related links

Cycling Weekly's transfer index

Adam Blythe: Rider profile