Deignan takes overall honours at Tour of the Gila

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The Gila Monster stage lived up to its reputation as one of the toughest racing days in the US Sunday at Silver City's Tour of the Gila, decimating the men's field and launching UnitedHealthcare's Phil Deignan into the final overall lead. Stage winner Francisco Mancebo (5-hour Energy/Kenda) added another notch his palmares with an aggressive effort throughout the day.

In the women's race, overall leader Mara Abbott (Exergy-Twenty16) flew away on the final climb and held off Claudia Haeusler (TIBCO-To the Top), Janel Holcomb (Optum-Kelly Benefit Strategies) and Alison Powers (NOW & Novartis for MS) for the stage win and the final overall victory.

Gila Monster devours Acevedo's overall lead

Jamis-Hagens Berman's Janier Acevedo held onto a slim four-second lead in the overall battle heading into Sunday's final stage but had ridden well all week and was confident about his chances to hang on for the win. But he was isolated early and often over the 161.9 km stage that threw nearly 2,738 meters of climbing at the UCI men's field.

In the end, Acevedo ran out of steam about 20 km from the finish and was unable to follow Phil Gaimon (Bissell) who opened up a gap from a select group of eight and then was quickly followed by Mancebo, Deignan and Matt Cooke (Champion System-Stans No Tubes). Gaimon held a small advantage over the chasers until the trio caught him less than 500 meters from the line.

The Bissell rider had to settle for fourth behind Mancebo, Cooke and Deignan, respectively, but moved to second overall. It was a bitter-sweet day in his fist race back since crashing at the San Dimas Stage Race in March.

"It's good that my legs are getting better every day," Gaimon said. "I'm enjoying that part, but a near miss hurts. There were five or six guys behind me at first, and I had 30 seconds and I was gaining on them, but then when it split up I knew it was Mancebo in the chase group, and I knew he was going to go crazy to catch me for the stage win. There's not much you can do with that dude behind you."

Acevedo, meanwhile, dropped more than two minutes behind, following Gavin Mannion (Bontrager), Cesar Grajales (Predator) and Lucas Euser (UnitedHealthcare) across the finish for eighth.

"This is a very epic day," said Jamis-Hagens Berman director Seba Alexandre. "This is a very hard stage - one of the hardest in US racing. It was very hard for the team, and we tried to control the race as much as we could. I think we raced it very good, but after the category 1 KOM, Janier was isolated, and he had the responsibility to cover all of the moves. It was only one guy who wanted to help, that was Mancebo, and I'm sure he felt strong because he won the stage."

The race started out fast and furious, often running as much as 10 minutes ahead of previous years. UnitedHealthcare drove the initial pace along with Bontrager, which put three riders into an early 15-rider breakaway that gained an ultimate advantage of 1:10 before the chase behind, driven by Mancebo and another 5-hour Energy rider with an isolated Acevedeo in tow, brought the breakaway back about 200 meters from the day's second KOM.

On the descent down to the Gila Cliff Dwellings, UnitedHealthcare's Jonny Clarke and Predator Carbon Repair's Dio Smith slipped away and had 1:20 for the return trip back up the climb the field had just come down. Smith dropped off the pace when the road pitched up, but Clarke continued on until Deignan attacked and bridged to his teammate.

Deignan's move continued to shred the field, and a select group of 11 formed behind him that included Acevedo, Mancebo, Gaimon, Cooke, Grajales, Euser, Clarke and Mannion, along with Bissell's Carter Jones and Bontrager's Nathan Brown.

Acevedo and Cooke attacked next, dragging themselves up to the UnitedHealthcare rider. The attacks whittled the group behind to just five riders, and when the chase caught the three leaders, Gaimon launched his ultimately ill-fated effort 20 km out. Despite having spent much of the race in the wind, Mancebo was able to finish off his effort to pull himself into the stage win and Deignan into the overall lead.

"Today was a too hard stage," an exhausted-looking Mancebo said after his win. "Everybody attacked at the start, no breakaway. The climbs, we climbed them too hard, everybody, Phil Deignan attacked a couple of times, Acevedo too, Phil Gaimon. Good riders, hard attacks and finally everybody come here dead I think. I was cramping for the second time in life."

The General Classification shake-up after the finale also lifted Gaimon into second from fifth after the previous stage, and Mancebo moved into third from ninth after his day of punishing much of the field with numerous hard efforts on the front. Cooke made the biggest leap, jumping from 20th place to fourth overall. Acevedo dropped to fifth. Bissell's Chris Baldwin, who started the day second overall got dropped on the category 1 climb on the return from the cliff dwellings and finished the stage in 25th place, dropping to 11th overall.

Deignan, a 29-year-old Irish rider, said the win was his first in "a couple" of years and provided a nice boost for his confidence.

"Now I come into California and I have really good condition," he said. "For the team, obviously, as well, we've had a really successful race and this has capped it all off. I just want to thank all the guys and thank the team. We had a plan and they had confidence in me.

"When I originally attacked I went earlier than expected," he continued. "But I saw the jersey was in a little bit of difficulty, so I pushed on on the climb and then recovered a little bit on the descent. When they came across, I was just going to wait, wait, wait. Then when Mancebo went I knew he was the perfect guy to go with. We worked really well together. So in the end it worked perfect."

Abbott survives day of attacks to keep overall

The women's 110 km event was equally as devastating to the field as the men's race, but overall leader Abbott, who started the day with more than a minute over runner-up Alison Powers (NOW & Novartis for MS), relied on her considerable climbing prowess to attack on the final climb and take her second stage of the tour, cementing her third overall Gila win.

"Obviously, to launch off that climb was awesome," Abbott said. "But it’s a long way to the finish. It worked out. It really isn’t rocket science. You go when you can play your advantage. That’s why I race a bike race."

And the racing was especially hard on Sunday. A breakaway of three riders put the pressure on Abbott and her Exergy team early, with Robin Farina (NOW), Joelle Numainville (Optum-Kelly Benefit Strategies) and Rushlee Buchanan (TIBCO) escaping after the first sprint just 16 km into the race.

The trio built an ultimate gap of 2:45, but Exergy director Mike Engleman said the move was never a real threat to Abbott's overall.

"NOW put somebody out there so that Alison would have somebody to go across to," Engleman said. "So it wasn't dangerous. It never got more than 2:45, so that's not much. That breakaway was not there to stay away. It was there to help their teammates coming up."

And that's exactly what happened. Exergy's Dvorak attacked at the bottom of the climb, bringing Haeusler and Abbott along with her. Dvorak dropped back, but the remaining duo quickly caught and passed the leaders. That's when Haeusler, who started the day 2:57 off the overall lead, couldn't hold Abbott's pace and started slipping back.

The first chase group now included Powers, who had a teammate with her, Holcomb, Dvorak and Exergy's Kristin McGrath. Holcomb said she waited for Powers to attack and then stuck to her wheel.

"I needed to just wait and then Alison attacked," Holcomb said. "We caught Joelle by then, and she screamed, 'Go!' to me. I went and got on Alison’s wheel. I was able to work with Alison and we got to Claudia."

Powers and Holcomb worked well together and inched back Abbott's advantage. With Abbott eventually within sight up the road, Haeusler started to take some pulls, likely hoping to catch Abbott and at least grab a stage win for her week's effort at the New Mexico race. And it worked.

With Haeusler's added horsepower, the group began closing quickly before the TIBCO rider jumped and was able to chase to within two seconds of Abbott. Holcomb rolled across the line eight seconds later for third, while Powers crossed the line another five seconds in arrears. Numainville held on for fifth, coming in 2:26 behind the winner.

The top two spots of the of General Classification remained unchanged, with Abbott and Powers holding onto first and second, but Holcomb and Haeusler moved past McGrath into third and fourth, respectively.

Abbott praised her teammates for setting her up so well for the stage win and the overall.

"It could not have been better," Abbott said. "Everyone of them rode amazingly today."

Engleman agreed with his star riders' assessment.

"Mara came here and said, 'I want one of those handmade bowls that go to the overall winner.' And she got one," Engleman said. "But the whole team deserves a little piece of it."

Elite women - Results

Elite men - Results