Jim Ochowicz

Team manager In 1981, Ochowicz founded the successful squad, which he managed through 1995, by which time it was known as Team Motorola.

In many ways Ochowicz is considered to be the father of professional cycling in the United States. While a handful of American riders rode professionally in Europe in the early 80's, including phenom Greg LeMond, it wasn't until the mid 80's that the first American team broke into the professional ranks of Europe. This was the 7-Eleven team formed by Ochowicz, which was the second American team to compete in a grand tour, and was initially founded to compete in track cycling events. 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 strong riders at this time including Greg Van Avermaet, Philippe Gilbert, the time trial specialist Rohan Dennis and Taylor Phinney. Porte finished 5th in the 2016 Tour de France and between 2016 and 2018 the team won several races including many team times trials as well as the Tour Down Under, Tirreno–Adriatico, Tour de Luxembourg, Tour de Suisse and a gold medal in the road race of the 2016 Summer Olympics with Van Avermaet.

During the 2018 Tour de France BMC won the team time trial and as a result there was a very rare tie for the yellow jersey between Van Avermaet and van Garderen. Van Avermaet was awarded the jersey and seemed to be in a position to hold it for several stages. At this time the team was struggling to maintain its sponsorship and even though they were in the lead at the biggest bike race in the world, their future as a team was uncertain. Ochowicz was able to secure a deal with Polish shoe manufacturer CCC to ensure the continued existence of the team. Meanwhile, the Tour rolled on and Van Avermaet was able to stay in the lead for eight stages. By 2021 the team had changed sponsors again, this time to Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux. Despite no longer being a dominant team as they had been in the mid-2010s, they still performed strongly in major races including the 2021 Vuelta a España where Rein Taaramäe and Odd Christian Eiking both got involved in successful breakaways resulting in the team defending the leader's jersey for nearly half the race.

Personal life

Jim Ochowicz is the husband of former track cyclist and Olympic speed skater Sheila Grace Young-Ochowicz and the father of Olympic speed skater Elli Ochowicz.