Oscar Sanchez powers to Tour of the Gila victory in Mogollon

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Colombian climber Oscar Sanchez (Canel's Specialized) took out the first stage of the Tour of the Gila on Wednesday, out-climbing 2015 overall winner Rob Britton (Rally Cycling) on the final ascent to Mogollon and capturing the first leader's jersey.

Sanchez attacked Britton and UnitedHealthcare's Gavin Mannion in the closing kilometres of the climb, crossing the line four seconds ahead of the Rally rider. While Mannion faded in the final kilometre, Australian Alex Evans (Mobius Bridgelane) surged to the fore and finished third ahead of Mannion.

"When we came into the climb, roughly with 10k to go, I had two teammates with me," said Sanchez, who raced at Gila once before in 2015.

"We were left with nine in the group before the climb," he said. "There were four from UHC, two from Rally, myself, and two others from I don't know which team. In the final 6km, I left the last teammate I had with me, with two UHC, and one from Rally at that point. With 5k to go, it was down to us three, at 3k it was just myself and Rally and that's when I attacked and went solo.

"This win is very important because I arrived here with very little racing form. It’s my first race of the season, racing against teams are in better form. For me this win is important for my confidence."

For Britton, who won the overall here in 2015 while riding for SmartStop, the stage was "as standard as Mogollon gets."

"We had the plan to kind of do what Lachlan [Morton, the 2016 winner] and Taylor Sheldon did a few years ago, and it more or less kind of worked," Britton said. "It would have been nice to have Evan [Huffman] and Kyle [Murphy] there as well. We wanted to be together, but if we weren't the plan was just to go.

"I had Adam [De Vos] right there, and an effort like that he's so good at," he said. "He just went flat out and put everybody else in difficulty, split off a lot of guys. He got me to the last kind of 5k, and I just kind of kicked in and didn't really look back."

How it unfolded

The 148km stage from downtown Silver City to the western ghost town of Mogollon was a familiar affair for veterans of the race. The route started with a brief climb out of town and into the surrounding open high desert. A long, flat section led to some rolling climbs before the peloton hit the major obstacle of the day, the 10.8km category 1 climb to Mogollon. Intermediate sprints at 29.5km and 92.5km decided who would wear the sprint jersey on Thursday.

The festivities started early in the day, when Canel's Ignacio Prado Juarez slipped away from the bunch by himself and set out for a long, lonely day out front. The Mexican time trial champion relied on his skills in the race against the clock to start building his advantage as Costa Rica's Carlos Brenes Mata and Aevolo's Michael Hernandez set off in pursuit.

The duo rode relentlessly in pursuit of the lone leader over many kilometres, but Prado proved too strong for the duo and consistently built time on them and the field. Mata and Hernandez continued to battle on, however, mopping up the remaining sprint points as Prado claimed the sprint jersey.

The chasing duo briefly caught Prado after the second sprint, but when they decided not to work on started sitting in, Juarez dispatched them once more. By this point Rally had massed on the front of the field and whittled the advantage down to 2:30 as Mata and Hernandez faded back into the bunch.

Prado finally succumbed to the chase with about 20km remaining in the stage and about 10km to the final climb. Once they made the catch, Rally continued to set the tempo on the front, keeping the pace high to set up their quartet of contenders.

The bunch hit the final climb together, and Rally stayed on the front to put the pressure on. De Vos took the front on the false flat in the middle of the climb, blowing the field apart as he pounded out kilometre after kilometre in the crosswind.

The young Canadian eventually pulled off for his leader, leaving a small group to battle up the climb, where Sanchez proved his supremacy on the day.

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