Day takes overall lead after criterium upset

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The Tour of the Gila was turned on its head on Saturday night during the stage four criterium in downtown Silver City when four riders lapped the men's field, propelling UnitedHealthcare's Ben Day from 13th overall into the red leader's jersey heading into Sunday's Gila Monster stage. Jamis-Hagens Berman's Luis Amaran took the stage win.

In the women's race, US pro criterium champion Alison Powers jumped away from a daylong breakaway of four riders with one-and-a-half laps remaining to solo in for the win. Her teammate Mara Abbott conserved energy in the field and hung onto her leader's jersey before Sunday's Queen stage.

The 1.74km, four-corner course included 24.4 meters of climbing per lap and a swooping downhill final corner leading into a slightly uphill finish on a long straightaway.

UnitedHealthcare connects on hail Mary

The men's criterium started like any other, with multiple attacks flying up the road for the first part of the race until one of the moves finally stuck, with Day, Amaran, Zach Bell (Team SmartStop) and Bjorn Selander (Optum Pro Cycling) getting away 11 laps into the 40-lap event.

Although UnitedHealthcare didn't go into the race thinking it could steal the leader's jersey from Optum's Carter Jones, as the race played out it became clear to director Mike Tamayo that there was a chance to take the overall lead.

“It was a hail Mary pass,” Tamayo said of day's gambit. “We thought if the field sits up at one point and you could lap the field, it's at least two minutes. So we had Lucas [Euser] up the road early, and I was giving him the full-gas-go for the engine, and then that got brought back. Ben went in the next move, and they let the leash out a little bit too long.”

With four riders up the road and Day the best placed overall at 1:58 down, Optum rode tempo on the front for nine laps before the leaders' gap had ballooned to 1:40 and they were just 14 seconds behind the field.

“At that point, I didn't care about the stage,” Tamayo said. “All I wanted to do was take the two minutes. Give me the red jersey. That's it. Simple.”

Day said the team's plan going into the race was to be aggressive and be a part of the race. That all changed when Optum let Day's group lap the field.

“In the end it just happened to be that I was the guy in the move that Optum decided to let go,” Day said. “It didn't even really dawn on me that it could be the red jersey as well. And so it wasn't until we kind of caught the group that it dawned on me that that was the situation. So here we are. We've got the jersey for tomorrow, and the game's back on. We come crawling back.”

Although the Optum squad was obviously disappointed to give up the overall lead and also come away empty-handed in the stage results, director Jonas Carney tried to look at the day's effort in the best possible light heading into Sunday's Queen stage.

“I think in hindsight it's probably a good situation for us going into tomorrow that we don't have to defend with the team we have here,” Carney said. “We have multiple sprinters who aren't really going to get over those climbs. Almost nobody ever succeeds in defending [the final stage]. I think with our roster it would have been incredibly difficult. We knew that going in.”

After the group lapped the field and Day's move into the overall lead seemed assured, attention turned back to the stage win. UnitedHealthcare sent riders back to move Day toward the front, as did SmartStop with Bell, Jamis with Amaran and Optum with Selander.

But with just two laps to go, a crash in turn one near the front of the field sent Bell to the ground with a broken collarbone. On the final sprint, Hincapie Sportswear's Ty Magner crossed the line first ahead of Bissell's Nicholai Brochner and SmartStop's Travis McCabe. Amaran crossed the line fifth ahead of Day and Selander in the pack to take the stage win.

After the race, Amaran said he knew the group had a good chance to stay away, and if it did he had a good chance to win.

“I knew that Ben Day and Zach Bell were strong,” he said. “The Optum guy wasn't really working, but I knew they were strong and we had a chance to stay away, but I didn't think we were going to lap the field. I knew that when we lapped the field there was a chance – with four guys – to win the stage. I knew that Zach Bell had probably the best chance.”

But with Bell out of the finale, Amaran was able to put his own bunch-sprint skills to good use.

“He is the lead-out guy for J.J. Haedo,” said Jamis director Sebastian Alexandre. “So he's used to that. He knows this crit very well, because we have won several times here. So he knew where he needed to be to be up there.”

Day now leads Jones by 28 seconds in the overall and Jamis' Gregory Brenes by 30 seconds. SmartStop's Rob Britton is fourth, 38 seconds down, followed by Jelly Belly's Kirk Carlsen in fifth, 44 seconds back. Jamis now has four riders in the top 10 with Brenes, Amaran in sixth, Matt Cooke in eighth and stage 1 winner Daniel Jaramillo in ninth. UnitedHealthcare's best-placed rider behind Day is Euser in 15th place, 2:53 down.

Tamayo said his team is ready to take up the difficult task of defending the lead on the Queen stage, and his riders will do it with respect to the jersey.

“The challenging part is that Jamis has an amazing team here for climbing,” he said. “So hats off to them. [Alexandre] put together a really great team of climbers. So it's going to be hard to race against those guys in the mountains tomorrow. But we'll go out swinging. That's how we do it. If we lose, we lose, but we'll go out swinging.”

Powers proves criterium prowess

The women's race was more straightforward the men's race, with the breakaway of four peeling away from the field about eight laps into the 25-lap contest. Carmen Small (DNA Cycling), Joanne Kiesanowski (Team Tibco) and Jessica Cerra (FCS-Zngine) joined Powers off the front for the rest of the race.

“That was very early in the race, but everyone was working really well,” Powers said of the breakaway. “I knew Carmen was super motivated for a breakaway, so she was working. I worked, but not full gas, because I didn't really have to. The team plan was to go for a breakaway and try to get stage win. So that was perfect. It was great.”

With Powers up the road, the rest of her UnitedHealthcare teammates were free to sit in the group and conserve energy for their defense of Abbott's red leader's jersey on Sunday.

Colavita sent stage 3 winner Lauren Brown off the front in a bridging attempt, followed by Olivia Dillon after field brought back Brown's effort. But the group wasn't keen on letting any other riders join the quartet up the road, and it quickly brought back the riders who tried.

The leaders' gap grew to 32 seconds with just five laps remaining, and it was clear the winner would come from the breakaway. At that point, Powers started considering her options for the finale.

“I didn't want to leave it to a sprint, because Carmen's a faster sprinter and Jo [Kiesanowski] is a faster sprinter,” Powers said. “But I knew if I went with more than two laps to go that's a little far and I'd get too tired. So I waited for an opportunity, you know, where are my strengths? OK, down hills and corners are my strengths, so I went with about one-and-a-half laps to go. And that last lap hurt real badly.”

Powers held off her chasing former breakaway companions and soloed in seven seconds ahead of Small for the win. Kiesanowski finished with Small for third. Cerra was fourth, 12 second off Powers' pace. Dillon won the field sprint for fifth, 27 seconds behind the leader.

The top three in the GC remained unchanged after the stage, but time bonuses gained by Small and Powers moved both ahead of Lauren Stephens (Team Tibco) into fourth and fifth, respectively. Small is now 2:24 behind Abbott. Powers is 2:27 down. Stephens is now in sixth, 3:02 down.

Sunday's Gila Monster Road Race is one of the toughest days on the US circuit. The men's 161.9km stage includes 2,738 meters of ascending over two category 3 climbs, two category 2 climbs and a category 1 climb, finishing in Pinos Altos. The women's 110.9km stage includes 1,710 meters of ascending over two category three climbs and one category 2 climb.

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