Acevedo aces Salt Lake City circuit

Janier Acevedo gave the Gobernacion de Antioquia team its second stage victory of the Tour of Utah, taking out the Salt Lake City circuit with a solo attack from a large breakaway.

The Colombian rider jumped clear on the steep approach to the state capital and held onto a 100m advantage at the line over Type 1 diabetic Javier Megias Leal (Team Type 1-Sanofi) and his teammate and mountains classification leader Rubens Bertogliati.

RadioShack's Levi Leipheimer managed to hold onto his yellow jersey in the face of an all-out assault by the Colombian team. He now holds 23 seconds over previous race leader Sergio Henao (Gobernacion de Antioquia), while Leipheimer's teammate Janez Brajkovic fell to third at 27 seconds. Henao's teammate Oscar Sevilla is two seconds further back in fourth.

The Gobernacion team placed three riders in the winning breakaway, and they took turns attacking on the last lap until finally Acevedo was able to go clear on the final climb to the line.

"I'm very happy to get a stage win," Acevedo said. "It is always difficult to win a race, anywhere you go, and I am especially satisfied to take the victory in a race against some of the best riders in the world."

Megias Leal, who hails from Madrid, was accustomed to the searing heat, but could not follow Acevedo when he attacked on the steepest part of the climb to the line. "I felt good and I was thinking I had the legs to go at the end, but Acevedo was so strong and nobody could follow him, so second place isn't really first of the worst today," he said.

Bertogliati agreed that it was impossible to match the Colombian on the bottom of the climb. "The first part of the climb was too hard and Acevedo had very good legs and immediately gained 100 meters," Bertogliati said. "I jumped across on the second part of the climb, which suited me better. I'm very happy for Javier who has Type 1 diabetes and is the best diabetic rider in the world."

Searing heat and 'caliente' racing

On a brutally hot day in Salt Lake City and a punishing 12km circuit which riders faced 11 times, the predictions of the race being blown apart by the Colombian team proved true, but they had help from a number of dangerous riders: Realcyclist.com's leader Francisco Mancebo was one of the early aggressors, while Garmin-Cervélo's Christian Vande Velde bridged across to the winning move.

It was apparent that the race for the stage victory would go to the breakaway when the remaining riders still had more than a minute's lead in the final 10km. Acevedo's teammate Rafael Montiel launched a vicious attack which, when he was caught, set up a counter-attack from Vande Velde but the American couldn't shake the Colombians and faded to ninth on the stage, six seconds behind Acevedo.

Vande Velde gained 1:32 on Leipheimer, however, and moved into fifth on the overall standings, 1:18 down on the yellow jersey, but it wasn't the Garmin-Cervélo rider's intent to challenge for the yellow jersey when he bridged across to the winning move on the second lap.

"I had two young teammates up there who went with the move early, and I was just going in for a good day of training, but that was an especially good day of training. It was really hard and aggressive racing. This Tour of Utah has been amazing so far," Vande Velde said. "I wanted to be aggressive, so I went across, it was fun to be up there."

The story of the day was the razor sharp racing by the Gobernacion team which has not yet ceded the race to the RadioShack team. Not only did they have three riders in the breakaway, but previous race leader Sergio Henao attacked with one lap to go from the peloton and put 33 seconds into the race leader Levi Leipheimer.

"I made a strong attack and it was hard," said Henao. "I had to attack hard to try and gain some more time. Every second is important for me. We were happy to win the stage today, but I still needed to get some seconds for the overall."

"It was our intention to put pressure on the RadioShack team from the start and to have a presence in any of the breakaways," said stage winner Acevedo. "We knew that even though we lost the jersey yesterday, the race is not lost. We will gave it our all today and we will do it again on the climbs tomorrow."

Mancebo was one of the riders to spark the breakaway, and with his fourth place finish on the day earned enough time to move into seventh overall, 2:09 behind the race leader.

"We were definitely going after the time today, said Jason Kriel, manager RealCyclist.com. "Our plan was to attack and be aggressive all day. [Mancebo] finished fourth and brought himself closer in time on the general classification that will make things more interesting for tomorrow."

RadioShack under attack

A 26-rider breakaway went clear on the first lap, and while the RadioShack team worked to keep the group within striking distance, the difficulty of the stage began to wear on the team as the lap counter clicked down.

At the mid-point of the race the leaders had a maximum gap of 2:50, which nearly put Vande Velde in the virtual race lead. However, it was an attack by best young rider Tejay Van Garderen (HTC-Highroad) that almost halved the gap, but it also served to shatter the race leader's team.

"Then when Tejay attacked on the climb the team exploded," RadioShack directeur sportif Alain Gallopin said. "The other teams wouldn't work. It's normal that we take responsibility to defend the jersey, but this race was very difficult to control. It was difficult to find a team that was interested in working.

"You had to put aggression into the field because RadioShack didn't look like they were strong enough to pull the breakaway back," Van Garderen said. "We were thinking that we could get some momentum if there were some attacks. Danny was working for me because there were riders up the road that could potential take over my GC spot. We had to try and pull back some time."

Without its usual WorldTour horsepower, the RadioShack team struggled to control the race for Leipheimer, and would eventually lose two riders, Bjorn Selander and Jason McCartney, to the time cut. In the final lap it was up to the yellow jersey himself to work to hold onto the race lead.

"Levi did what he had to do, he even pulled on the last lap, but he couldn't pull 100 per cent or else he risked being attacked on the final climb," said Gallopin. "In the end he had to work to limit the loss to [Henao], but he still lost 26 [sic] seconds."

A quick start to a short stage

The Tour of Utah left the state capital building for 11 circuit for a total of 129km in downtown Salt Lake City without stage 1 winner Jesse Anthony (Kelly Benefit Strategies/OptumHealth), who fell ill overnight. In the course of the stage several more riders would abandon, including Luis Crosby (PureBlack), Simon Lambert-Lemay (Spidertech) and Caleb Fairly (HTC-Highroad), while more would fall victim to the time cut.

With the Gobernacion de Antioquia riders having ground to make up on Leipheimer and Brajkovic, the Colombian team was expected to be aggressive from the start, but instead it was David Gutierrez (Geox-TMC) who launched the first move on the opening lap.

The Spaniard was joined by a rider from Bissell and UnitedHealthcare as well as HTC-Highroad's Patrick Grestch, but that move was closed down before it could gain significant ground.

The definitive move went on the climb to the finish line at the end of lap 1, when a rider from the Gobernacion team attacked up the hill, splitting the field so that a 23-rider group had a slight advantage over the top at the start of lap 2.

Mancebo was driving the pace as Fairly fell off the group, but the number up front remained steady as sprinter Elia Viviani (Liquigas-Cannondale) bridged across mid-way through the lap.

At the end of lap 2, Christian Vande Velde (Garmin-Cervélo) came across with Javier Megias Leal (Team Type 1-Sanofi) and Gutierrez, making a 26-rider breakaway that began to stabilize and gain more than a minute by the end of lap 3.

The group consisted of: Lachlan Norris (HTC-Highroad), Chad Beyer (BMC), Peter Stetina, Christian Vande Velde and Danny Summerhill (Garmin-Cervelo), Timothy Duggan and Elia Viviani (Liquigas-Cannondale), David Gutierrez (Geox-TMC), Rubens Bertogliati and Javier Megias Leal (Team Type 1 - Sanofi), Lucas Euser, Pat McCarty and Andrew Randell (Team Spidertech p/b C10), Davide Frattini and Chris Jones (UnitedHealthcare), Francisco Mancebo and Thomas Rabou (Realcyclist.com), Christopher Baldwin and Paul Mach (Bissell), Luis Romero Amaran (Jamis-Sutter Home), Andrew Bajadali, Alexender Candelario and Jason Donald (Kelly Benefit Strategies-OptumHealth), Javier Acevedo, Alejandro Ramirez and Rafael Montiel (Gobernacion de Antioquia-Indeportes Antiquia).

RadioShack took the sole responsibility for controlling the breakaway, setting all of its riders on the front with Leipheimer in tow, keeping the gap low enough so that the best-placed rider in the breakaway, Vande Velde, who was 2:50 behind at the start of the stage, was no threat.

But the gap reached the 2:50 mark at the end of lap 6, putting Vande Velde into the virtual race lead with five laps to go. By the end of the lap, a surge from the race's best young rider, Tejay Van Garderen (HTC-Highroad) split the chasing field bringing the gap down to 1:35, and putting pressure on the RadioShack team as Leipheimer was forced to chase alone as his team blew apart.

The fortunes for the breakaway shifted on the next lap as the RadioShack team pulled back from the front of the peloton, allowing the gap to go out to 2:30 as attacks began up ahead in an attempt to reduce the breakaway.

A surge from Frattini and Leal at the end of lap 8 put pressure on Norris, Randell and Rabou, and with Candelario dropped earlier in the lap, the breakaway was down to 22 riders.

The situation stabilised in the breakaway with two laps to go as the heat, hills and altitude convinced the riders to conserve some for the final lap. The breakaway rolled through with 1:45 on the peloton, but behind there was another attack from Henao that split the peloton further.

Up ahead Liquigas' Viviani launched a move to set up his teammate Duggan, but when he was caught, Montiel went clear. Vande Velde and Bertogliati pushed the pace heading into the final kilometers, but it was Acevedo who still had enough spring left in his legs to jump clear and win the stage.

Megias Leal did enough to take second, just ahead of a group led to the line by Bertogliati and Mancebo.

Behind, Henao had Jack Bauer (Endura) with him until the final climb, and the Kiwi held on to take 22nd on the day, second to Henao behind the breakaway remnants.

Van Garderen led home the chase of the yellow jersey group, with Sevilla, Danielson and Brajkovic all finishing in the same time as the race leader.

The Gobernacion team vowed to continue it's attack on the Tour of Utah's final stage, which includes two major climbs, the second of which concludes the race. "Tomorrow will be really hard and we intend to continue attacking like today," said Henao.