Morton seals overall Tour of the Gila victory

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Lachlan Morton (Jelly Belly) withstood the challenge from his competitors on the final stage of the Tour of the Gila, conceding only a small amount of time to stage winner Daniel Jaramillo (UnitedHealthcare) and Janier Acevedo (Jamis) on the mountain top finish.

The result is surprising in that it's Morton's first stage race victory since his years in the U23 ranks, during which he won the Tour de l'Abitibi. In 2013 he was best young rider in the Tour of Utah and USA Pro Challenge, demonstrating his promise.

"I was pretty nervous about today. In the last few years there haven't been many guys who were able to defend on this stage because it's so tough, but this feels awesome," Morton said after celebrating the overall win with his team. "It's good to be able to pay back the team for all the times they've worked for me, and all the faith they've put in me not just this week but over the last year and a half."

The Jelly Belly team controlled the race for the first half of the 162km stage, keeping a large breakaway within striking distance.

The escape included Danny Pate, Evan Huffman, Thomas Zirbel (Rally Cycling), William Barta, Ruben Guerreiro, Justin Oien, Logan Owen (Axeon Hagens Berman), Jon Hornbeck, Robin Carpenter, Rob Squire, Joe Lewis, and Travis McCabe (Holowesko-Citadel Racing Team), Chad Beyer (Lupus Racing Team), Kyle Murphy (Team Jamis), Bryan Sanchez (Team Jamis), and Michael Le Rossignol (Silber Pro Cycling).

They were never given more than a minute's lead, and were caught after 104km, when the race did the traditional U-turn at the Gila Cliff Dwellings visitor's center.

"Our goal was to get to the bottom at the cliff dwellings with it all together. I was pretty confident I could take it on from there," Morton said. "The team were amazing for the first 100km of the race. They really controlled it and rode out of their skin."

However, when the attacks started to fly on the penultimate steep climb to Wild Horse Mesa, Morton had used up his team and was isolated amongst those trying to unseat him.

Acevedo and Jaramillo got away on the penultimate uncategorized climb to Meadow Creek, and began to threaten the podium positions when they had a 1:10 advantage. "I was a little outnumbered for the last two climbs," Morton said. "I knew I had two minutes on Acevedo, and Britton and the Silber guy [Cataford] only had one minute to lose. I sort of gambled on them chasing, and they didn't for a while and the gap got out to 1:10, so I had to take it up myself and chase. I brought it back to about 40 seconds by the time we got to the bottom of the last climb, and I was pretty confident and started thinking about the sprint."

Jaramillo and Acevedo only managed 14 and 11 seconds, respectively, on Morton's small group by the end. Best young rider Tao Geoghegan Hart (Axeon-Hagens Berman) won the small bunch sprint for third on the stage. Alex Cataford (Silber) kept his second place overall from Rob Britton (Rally Cycling).

"I had not done any long climbs this year in races up to this one," Geoghegan Hart said. "We did have climbs in the Italian races and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, but those were short, punchy ones. Here, we had longer duration climbs. Already today, I could feel my body was feeling the good effects of the first stage. Plus, doing a time trial - which I also had not done in a long time - was good preparation for California."

Travis McCabe (Holowesko-Citadel) padded his margin in the points classification by taking third in the first sprint to take home the green jersey.

Britton, who came into the race as defending champion, was impressed with the level of difficulty in this year's race.

"This is probably the hardest day of continental racing in the US, so it was a hard day. Acevedo and Jaramillo obviously put pressure not only on myself but Silber as well for the podium spots. Luckily I had two great teammates in Evan [Huffman] and Emerson [Oronte], and they sold out for the last 20km for me. That saved us our spots," Britton said.

"It was different this year with the wind. It made it a continuously harder week, every day was hard. Last year I put myself in a good position with the time trial, and this year it just about lost the whole race for me. The team rode amazing to protect me all week. Lachlan was just riding amazingly."

Cataford had a scare on the steep Wild Horse Mesa ascent, and came detached for a moment, but pulled himself together and held onto the group with Morton and Britton to seal his first UCI stage race podium placing.

"Going over the last cat 2 of the day I actually came off a little bit, and had to do a pretty big effort to get back on," he said. "That was a tough moment, I thought I almost lost it. But I rallied through and got back on, and just managed to hold onto what I had at the finish. But it was a hard day. I'm glad I made it through. It takes some mental toughness to get through moments like that.

"It's my break-out stage racing ride so far. I've never had a podium in a UCI stage race before. I can't thank my teammates enough. I didn't have to do anything today. They were there for me all day."

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