BMC was well on its way to winning the Group 2 team time trial on Sunday's final stage of the Hammer Series until a series of ill-fated punctured tires relegated the team to a third-place finish in Limburg, Netherlands.

As clearly the most dominant team within the second group, BMC was powering its way toward the finish line on the final lap when things quickly began to fall apart.

First, Daniel Oss got a flat on his front wheel with 7km to go. This would hurt the team, but BMC could survive losing one man because it still had four riders remaining and the times at the Hammer Series are given off of when a team's fourth rider crosses the finish. Then it started to take a turn for the worse. Stefan Kung was the next to require a bike switch after he also got a flat with 6.5km remaining.

Now, the rest of the team was forced to come to a standstill on the road and wait for Kung's bike swap before they could continue riding. The blue and white jerseys of Quick-Step Floors were flying up onto the wheels of the BMC team struggling to reorganize. Impressively, BMC got its momentum going and managed to stay ahead of the Belgian team that was now riding into contention for a stage win.

Less than a kilometer later, it was all over. Miles Scotson jumped up and down on his bike and realized he too had a flat. Quick-Step flew by, quickly followed by Trek-Segafredo, and BMC could only watch in shock over the unreal turn of events. Even after the third flat, BMC still looked like it was ready to fight back into the race. Scotson jumped on his new bike and was riding up to rejoin the rest of the team, but just a few hundred meters up the road after his bike exchange, the BMC riders were all throwing their hand up in the air.


Manuel Quinziato scored their fourth flat. In total, the team got four flats in about three kilometers. BMC had been on pace to potentially ride to the overall fastest time of the day. Instead, it rolled across the finish 1:38 behind the Quick-Step Floors team that BMC had been beating after the second lap. Afterwards, BMC's riders remained relatively upbeat -- less frustrated at one error but slightly amused at how badly their luck had turned.

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