Svein Tuft reflects on Orica-GreenEdge’s TTT at the 2015 Tour of Alberta

On a cold, wet day, ahead of the start of Stage 2 of the Tour of Alberta, Svein Tuft looked back on his team’s performance in the opening team time trial the day before. Orica-GreenEdge was the favourite on that stage, but they lost to Trek Factory Racing by less than a second. Tuft, however, took the second-place finish in stride.

“We’ve definitely taken something from it,” he said. “We learned some lessons from it. That’s the most important thing. Sure we were disappointed, but at the end of the day, we were able to learn a few things. You always need to keep learning and evolving and adapting. That’s the best thing we could have gotten out of that.”

Tuft usually misses the Tour of Alberta because he’s prepping for the TTT at the world championships. This year, with worlds in Richmond, Va., the TTT stage at the Tour of Alberta is just the tune-up teams are looking for.

Tuft, who hails from Langley, B.C., did get to wear the best Canadian jersey heading into Stage 2. “It’s very cool,” he said. “To be home racing in Canada and wearing the Canadian jersey, that’s always special.”

As for the plan for Stage 2: “Michael Matthews is our guy,” Tuft said. It turned out, he was right.