Hall claims Tour of the Gila opening stage

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Katie Hall (UnitedHealthcare) scored a repeat victory on the Mogollon climb Wednesday during the opening stage of the Tour of the Gila. Hall out-climbed Rally Cycling's Sara Poidevin, with Frenchwoman Edwige Pitel (QCW) in third.

The result echoes Hall's win last year at the Gila, when she went on to finish second behind then-teammate Tayler Wiles. Hall is also coming off a win last week at the Joe Martin Stage Race, where she seized the lead in the uphill time trial.

"I feel I'm on form right now, and it feels really good," Hall said.

Despite her current form, Hall says she did not feel so good on the final climb after a long, slog to get there.

"I felt pretty bad because we were really crawling for a long time, and that always makes me feel bad," she said, while giving thanks to her teammates for a job well done.

"We really raced a as team today, and every single person was working on the final climb," she said. I'm really happy to tae the win today, but I know I couldn't have done it without my team.

UnitedHealthcare director Rachel Heal said there were no surprises during the opening stage.

"Today's race is usually predictable with a fear of the final climb subduing many riders' enthusiasm to attack, but the predictability doesn't make it any easier to win, and it was a fantastic team effort to set Katie up. She finished it off in the best way possible with a victory.

How it unfolded

The 114km stage from downtown Silver City to the climb that ended near the western ghost town of Mogollon included two intermediate sprints at 29.8 and 59.1km before the final 10km category 1 climb.

The group stayed together over the opening rolling terrain until the first intermediate sprint, where Rally Cycling's Emma White took top points over Valentina Scandelara (RoxSolt Attaquer) and Erika Varela (Conade-Specialized-Visit Mexico).

The action settled down in the field after the first sprint, and with just 54 riders in the group, there was little incentive to break away before the stage-defining summit finish.

The action heated up again before the second intermediate sprint at with just under 60km to go. Varela took top points there and claimed the race's first sprint jersey, while Lily Williams (Hagens Berman-Supermint) was second and Diana Peñuela (UnitedHealthcare) was third.

With the final climb approaching, Hall's UnitedHealthcare team upped the pace for their climber, while Rally massed just behind.

Rally's Heidi Franz was first to attack, but UnitedHealthcare was quick to respond. The battle between the two teams amped up the pace considerably, and soon there were just six riders in the lead group, including UnitedHealthcare's Hall, Peñuela and Leah Thomas; Rally's Sara Poidevin; QCW's Pitel; and Swapit Agolico's Marcela Elizabeth Prieto.

That group quickly started shedding riders as well, with just Hall, Poidevan and Pitel left to fight for the win. Hall attacked with 500 metres to go and put eight seconds into Poidevin at the line. Pitel was third at 12 seconds back.

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