Anthony scores big in Ogden

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Jesse Anthony (Kelly Benefit Strategies-OptumHealth) took the biggest win of his career today with a victory in stage 1 of the Tour of Utah. The 26-year-old American went long in the sprint to the finish to beat his four breakaway companions to the line in Ogden after a hard-fought 182.9km stage.

Race leader Sergio Luis Henao Montoya (Gobernacion de Antioquia-Indeportes Antiquia) finished second, followed by teammate Oscar Sevilla in third, shutting out RadioShack's Levi Leipheimer and Janez Brajkovic from the time bonuses on offer, keeping the young Colombian in the leader's jersey.

The RadioShack pair finished fourth and fifth on the stage, but gained important time on other classification rivals such as Francisco Mancebo (Realcyclist.com), who was second overall coming into the stage.

"Levi was really strong today," the race leader Henao said, adding that his teammate Oscar Sevilla pushed the pace to go with the RadioShack riders in order to help Henao gain more time over Mancebo.

"I have confidence in my team here. It feels good to be up there with Oscar," Henao said. He and Sevilla are now separated by seven seconds as the top two overall riders, while Leipheimer is only 13 seconds behind, and likely a much superior time trialist.

"There are lot of stages to go but if I can keep Levi under control, I feel good to be in this position. We expect Levi to be very good," Henao said.

"That team is very intent on winning as well. There are strong riders and our team needs to be aware of what we are doing. That team is also very strong."

For Anthony, it was the most important result of his career, and a result that was earned the hard way, having chased solo to catch the early break for more than half a lap before finding himself in the winning move over the last climb.

"The race worked out perfectly for us, it was unbelievable," said Anthony, whose last major win was an overall victory in the Nature Valley Grand Prix, but without a stage victory. "The day could not have gotten any better and I think it was the best day all year. I'm just going to have to hang on now [for the overall classification]."

Coming into the finish, Anthony was wise to sit out pulls in the breakaway, as the two RadioShack riders worked together to distance the chasing group, and Sevilla worked for his team leader Henao.

"I thought, 'all I can do is screw this up' There were way too many opportunities to lose it. I knew that I could out-sprint most of them so I didn't want to start attacking early. I knew if they started attacking each other, that would be the end of me. Thankfullly they were riding for time and I took it steady and took off with about 250 metres to go."

In the final 50 meters, Sevilla made a hard charge on the outside in order to prevent Leipheimer from gaining enough in time bonuses to threaten Henao's lead, but the pair weren't able to pass the flying American.

"Those guys were working for the GC and that gave me the perfect opportunity to sit on."

Paul Voss (Endura Racing) won the field sprint for sixth place, 2:35 down on the break, as part of a 30-strong group which could not close the gap to the five leaders after the final trip up the North Ogden Pass, where the field shattered into several groups.

Anthony, who spent the better part of half a lap chasing an earlier breakaway before catching and passing them all on the final climb, was initially awarded the most aggressive rider prize, but since he won the stage, that honor passed on to Jay Thomson (Bissell), who was the last rider caught of the early four-man breakaway.

How it unfolded

It was another hot, hilly day in the Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah, and again the altitude played a factor in the racing as riders suffered on the punishing 4km climb that came once per each of three 61km laps.

The day's first break escaped only 4km into the stage, with Roman Van Uden (Pureblack) as the first aggressor. When he was caught, Thomson attacked, pulling away Rubens Bertogliati (Team Type 1-Sanofi), Bradley White (UnitedHealthcare) and Van Uden before the first climb up North Ogden Pass.

They gained a maximum lead of eight minutes over the peloton by the end of the first of three 61km laps, as the Gobernacion de Antioquia team refused to set tempo to control the breakaway on the flat sections. However, on the second climb, the Colombian squad pushed the pace to close the gap to four minutes by the crest.

Bertogliati claimed the maximum points on the first two climbs to take the king of the mountains jersey, which was a coveted jersey on the stage because the next mountain points will not come until the final stage.

"It was important for everybody because if they get the jersey today, you can keep it until Sunday," Bertogliati told Cyclingnews. "It was a good breakaway - everybody worked well.

"I'm a little disappointed [not to make the front group], because I was feeling good and I thought I could stay with the top riders, but I cramped on the final climb."

The Swiss rider aims to keep the jersey on the final stage by once again making the a breakaway, where there are two mountain sprints on offer.

Van Uden took both intermediate sprints, but with 15 points on the line for the stage winner, Anthony leads the sprint classification. The Kiwi is in contention heading into tomorrow's flatter, sprint-friendly stage.

On the second lap, an elite chase group formed after the climb behind the break of four, with Danny Pate (HTC-Highroad), Ted King (Liquigas-Cannondale), Chris Jones (UnitedHealthcare), Mike Creed (Kelly Benefit Strategies-OptumHealth) and Cristhian Montoya (Gobernacion de Antioquia) gaining half a minute on a sluggish field, but they were reeled in and immediately countered by Anthony.

When Anthony attacked, about 10km before the end of lap two, he dangled off the front of the peloton for almost 30km before he was able top slowly claw out an advantage, and closed in on the breakaway as it shattered at the start of the last lap. Thomson was solo off the front heading into the final climb, while the three chasers were quickly losing ground.

"I figured it was a great time to go, because everyone was pretty out of breath from the chase. I definitely didn't want to go alone, but nobody came with me," Anthony said. "I was definitely second guessing my decision when I was out there alone, but it worked out."

"After I got out there I held the gap for 20 seconds for so long and thought, 'this is not right'. I kept on going and closed in on the breakaway, opened up a gap on the field and it was a struggle just to stay up front on the KOM," Anthony said.

He succeeded in holding off the chase from Leipheimer at the crest, taking the maximum points.

"I just wanted to get over the top of the KOM before the front group caught me. I had no idea what was going on. I heard two minutes and then when I went over the KOM line they came blasting by me on the descent and I was like, 'oh boy, this is going to be a long one'. I was waiting for more guys to come across, tried to sit on the back to recover from being in the break.

"I knew they were coming at some point so it was just about hanging on for dear life. I had to stay topped up on fuel, it was so hot out there. I was able to sit on for so long that I got recovered by the end. They were riding for time and it was up to me to win the stage."

The five riders initially had only 20 seconds over a strong chase group including Tejay Van Garderen (HTC-Highroad), Jeff Louder (BMC), Tom Danielson (Garmin-Cervélo), Lucas Euser and Pat McCarty (Spidertech-C10), Francisco Mancebo (RealCyclist.com) and Javier Acevede (Gobernacion), but the chase group steadily lost time to the five leaders.

With 25km to go they were 50 seconds behind, and were soon absorbed by a larger chase group, and once the two came together the gap to the leaders ballooned.

In that chase group was the Tour's best Utah rider, Tyler Wren, who held onto his blue jersey over Louder and Chase Pinkham (Bissell).

"The three Utah riders in the chase group - Chase, Jeff and I are good friends. We train together all year long, riding and snowshoeing, so it's fun to have this special competition this week and I have some first-hand knowledge of how impressively strong they are."

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