Tour of Utah: Dahl wins opening stage

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Silber Pro Cycling's Kristofer Dahl won the opening stage of the 2016 Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah on Monday, taking the bunch sprint victory in Cedar City ahead of Colin Joyce (Axeon Hagens Berman) and BMC Racing's Rick Zabel.

Dahl now leads Joyce in the overall by four seconds and Zabel by six.

The 24-year-old Canadian relied on a long wind up after his team protected him over the final climb and then moved him to the front during the short finishing circuits in town.

"It was a little bit of a gong show in the sprint," Dahl told Cyclingnews in the finishing straight. "There were a lot of guys trying for it and I went early, just put my head down and pedalled as hard as I could.

"I was back a little bit, so I pretty much went from 1km. I went up the side and then punched it with like 300 or 400 metres to go. It was early. It was a long sprint, but somehow nobody came around me and I kept going. That was that."

Joyce admitted in the post-race press conference that he left it to late to overcome Dahl at the finish.

"With one kilometer to go, I was fighting for fifth wheel as we swung into that last left-hand turn," Joyce said. "It is a long straight to the finish so there was a little bit of swarming. I knew with how fast of a sprint it was, you definitely wanted to leave it a little late. Unfortunately, I left it a little too late. At the same time, I am stoked to get second."

UnitedHealthcare’s Daniel Jaramillo spent the day in the breakaway and earned the race's first mountain jersey for his efforts, while IAM Cycling's Simon Pellaud won the only intermediate sprint of the day, although Dahl's win put him at the top of that competition.

Silber's Matteo Dal-Cin was the last rider from the day's breakaway to be caught, along with Pellaud, and so earned the jersey for most aggressive rider. Dahl credited his teammate Dal-Cin's escape with helping set up his stage win.

"That was awesome. It was perfect that he was up the road," Dahl said. "Matteo being in the break – you get a lot of TV time out of it, but he's the type of guy who can sprint, time trial, climb, do everything – so we knew with him up the road that he was the strongest guy there for the win. If it went, that was perfect, if it didn't go then that's fine, we have the sprint set up well."

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How it unfolded

The 135km opening stage from Zion Canyon Village to Cedar City included one intermediate sprint and two KOMs: the category 4 climb at Duck Creek and the category 3 climb of Bristlecone, which crested with 40km to go. From there it was all downhill to three finishing circuits in Cedar City.

The day started with a 20km neutral rollout through Zion National Park, a feat that required three years of effort on the part of the race organisers to make happen.

Once the peloton exited the park the attacks flew furiously, with Taylor Sheldon (Jelly Belly p/b Maxxis), Adrien Costa (Axeon Hagens Berman), Pellaud and Chris Jones (UnitedHealthcare) making up the first breakaway that was soon caught and reshuffled. The peloton was obviously happy to see a breakaway go early rather than fighting it out for the first hour, and within a few kilometres a group of five escaped. In the group were Pellaud, Jaramillo, Dal-Cin, Adrien Costa (Axeon Hagens Berman), and Kyle Murphy (Team Jamis).

The peloton was pleased with the makeup and the escapee's gap started to go up rapidly, increasing over a minute almost immediately and going over four minutes just 15km into the day.

The gap was up to 4:40 by the team the leaders hit the sprint in Orderville 26km, where Pellaud took maximum points head of Dal-Cin and Murphy to claim the first sprint jersey of the race.

Murphy's time in the breakaway was about to end, however, as the Jamis rider dropped out of the group around kilometre 40 and slowly faded back into the bunch.

The four remaining breakaway riders soldiered on, accumulating a gap of 5:10 as they made the left turn toward Duck Creek at 56km. The peloton, led by the Cannondale-Drapac team of 2015 winner Joe Dombrowski, must have sensed the danger, as the team sent Phil Gaimon and several riders to the front along with BMC to start whittling away at the advantage.

The gap was down to 4:10 as the riders approached the first KOM, where Jaramillo took top honours ahead of Costa, Dal-Cin and Pellaud. Following the mountain sprint, the gap continued to come down, and by the time the breakaway was approaching the second KOM at 94km it was at 2:45.

Jaramillo again took maximum KOM points over Bristlecone ahead of Costa, Dal-Cin and Pellaud to claim the first mountains jersey of the race. The effort up Bristlecone cost Jaramillo and Costa, however, as Dal-Cin and Pellaud jumped away on the descent, leaving Jaramillo and Costa to chase ahead of the bunch, which BMC was now leading.

"Matteo Dal-Cin got in the super tuck and I was doing everything I could to go down as fast as I could," Costa said. "But Jaramillo and I – the two lighter guys – meter by meter fell back. On the slight downhill, the three or four percent stuff, it favours the big and more powerful guys. So those two pulled away pretty quickly."

The peloton eventually absorbed the two chasers, leaving Dal-Cin and Pellaud alone off the front. They entered the finishing circuits with 1:30, but their margin was down to just 24 seconds with 2 laps remaining and the bunch reeled them in on the penultimate lap, setting up the sprint finish.

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