Sutherland wins stage 1 at Tour of Utah

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UnitedHealthcare's Rory Sutherland survived five climbs Tuesday and temperatures approaching 37 degrees celcius before sprinting to the
Stage 1 win and the first leader's jersey of the 2012 Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah.

Sutherland collected the win and a 10 second time bonus that went along with it by out-sprinting a select group of 40 riders who rolled into downtown Ogden together after reeling in a daylong breakaway on the final category 2 ascent of North Ogden Pass. Sutherland finished several bike lengths ahead of Liquigas-Cannondale's Damiano Caruso, BMC's Brent Bookwalter and Bontrager-Livestrong's Lawson Craddock.

The opening stage, which featured 211 km with 2,724 meters of climbing, started in downtown Ogden before heading south and then looping around to the finish back in town. The course took riders over the summit of Trapper’s Loop twice, from different directions, and one climb over the Hogsback. The final climb over North Ogden Pass came about 191 km into the race, leaving a 20 km downhill run into the finish, where riders faced two tight turns in the final two kilometers, the last right-hander coming about 350 meters before the finish.

Up for grabs during the stage were three intermediate sprints and four King of the Mountains spots. The stage also offered time bonuses of 10, six and four seconds to the top three finishers.

The severity of the opening stage did little to deter the early adventurers, and about 13 km into the race an escape group of eight riders peeled away as the bunch made its way up the small incline past Pineview Reservoir. Further attacks from that group whittled the leaders down to just four: Caleb Fairly (Spidertech-C10), Ben Jacques-Maynes (Bissell), David Williams (Competitive Cyclist) and Eduard Beltran Suarez (EPM-UNE).

The quartet of escapees had a gap of more than two minutes just five miles later, promptiing when William Clarke to attempt a bridge. It took the Champion System rider more than 10 miles to make contact, but he eventually added his firepower to the escape after the other riders sat up momentarily to let him on. Now five strong, the breakaway continued to build its lead until it topped out at nearly 12 minutes about 53 km into the race.

“Two of the bigger teams were playing chicken, trying to see who was going to do the work, so the gap just went up,” Sutherland said, adding later that the “bigger” teams he was referring to were Radioshack-Nissan and Garmin-Sharp. Eventually Radioshack took control and began trimming the lead down in slow-but-steady increments.

The field cut the gap in half at the 120 km mark, and 2011 stage 1 winner Jesse Anthony (Optum-Kelly Benefit Strategies) decided to try and bridge the gap alone. By then the breakaway had reasserted itself, and the advantage hovered around five minutes until the leaders headed up the Trappers Loop climb for the second time. Clarke was the first rider to drop off the breakaway pace on the ascent, followed next by Williams, which left Jacques-Maynes, Fairly and Beltran Suarez to soldier on as a trio.

But Anthony, who had picked up Williams and Clarke, dragged the chasing trio back to the leaders to form a group of six with just 26.6 km remaining. The leaders' gap was still hovering around four minutes when some of the other teams threw riders in with Radioshack and Garmin to make sure the break came back on the final climb.

“We actually sent Hilton [Clarke] to the front to help out a bit to make sure that gap came down,” said UnitedHealthcare team director Mike Tamayo.

And come back it did. The bunch caught the escapees on the lowers slopes of the climb up North Ogden Pass, but counter-attacks started firing from the bunch as soon as the day's adventurers returned to the fold. Bontrager-Livestrong's Ian Boswell set a ballistic pace on the front up the final climb, shedding riders out the back and creating a small separation for himself, Fairly, Peter Stetina (Garmin-Sharp), and US national road champion Timmy Duggan (Liquigas-Cannondale).

Fairly soloed away from that group briefly, but the bunch wouldn't stand for it, and the select lead group came back together as they sailed down the descent back into Ogden. Bookwalter said the final run into the finish was pure chaos, highlighted by attacks, counter-attacks and a very motivated group that wouldn't let anything go.

“When you have a hard climb like that so close to the finish, everyone's trying to make it over the climb, make it over the climb, make it over the climb, and then everything reshuffled,” Bookwalter said. “There was a lot of kind of looking around, because no team took control. We tried our hand with some attacks to get something going that would stick to the line, but there were enough guys there with the power to bring everything back.”

UnitedHealthcare's Phillip Deignan attacked with about eight km to go, hoping to keep the speed high for Sutherland and his teammate in the lead group. When the group brought Deignan back, Garmin-Sharp's Dave Zabriske launched a short-lived solo move that also kept the pace high. But the seven-time US national time trial champ couldn't hold off the charging herd behind him as they barreled down toward finish.

With the finish line nearly in sight, Sutherland came through the final corner sitting fourth wheel and jumped not long after. The tall Australian rider, who won both Tour of the Gila and Tour de Beauce already this year, gained an initial advantage of three or four bike lengths before sitting up to post a salute for his win.

“It was a similar finish to last year, but it was a lot shorter coming out of the last corner,” Sutherland said of his winning effort. “We checked it out yesterday and could see it was about 300 to 350 meters, so you definitely didn't want to be the first one through. If you were third or fourth wheel you could kind of just jump off the other guys.”

Sutherland said that his – and the team's – first stage win at one of the three big UCI stages in the US was a product of teamwork and a new philosophy.

“We've been trying for the overall in races like Tour of California and the USA Pro Cycling Challenge,” Sutherland said. “We kind of hovered around seventh to 10th a few times. You kind of stop trying to win stages so much and always concentrate on that. So after California this year we really sat down and looked at it and said what have we been good at before and how can we actually win a stage or get more out of it than we were getting. So it was kind of going back to basics and taking it day by day. Race everyday trying to win the stage with whatever guys you have, and then the overall kind of takes care of itself.”

The overall certainly did take care of itself after Sutherland grabbed the day's stage win. He now wears the leader's jersey with a four second lead over Damiano and a six second lead over Bookwalter. But can Sutherland, who has won the National Race Calendar multiple times, hang onto it until the finish on Sunday?

“I'm a fairly big guy, but I can climb alright,” he said. “But this is a pretty brutal tour, so I don't feel the pressure to really go for the overall. But like I said, if I have the legs when I get there, we'll try and see what happens.”

The first test for Sutherland and his United Healthcare teams defense will come Wednesday at the team time trial, a discipline Sutherland said his squad doesn't have a lot of experience with.

“We're going to enjoy today and appreciate today and what we managed to pull off,” Sutherland said. “Come tomorrow, it's a strong field with a lot of strong teams that have more experience in that discipline than what we do. It doesn't mean you're not going to try your hardest. In a team time trial you just have to see what happens and where you come out at the end.”

Two-time Utah winner Levi Leipheimer (Omega-Pharma Quickstep) finished safely in the lead group with the same time as the winner. Pre-race favorites Christian Vande Velde and Tom Danielson of Garmin were also there, along with Rabobank's Wilco Kelderman, Radioshack's Chris Horner Liquigas rider Duggan and 2009 overall winner Francisco Mancebo (Competitive Cyclist). Garmin's Tyler Farrar crashed during the stage but was able to finish, crossing the line in 114th place.

Breakaway riders gobbled up two of the day's jerseys, with Bissell's Jacques-Maynes earning the mountain jersey and Anthony winning the most aggressive rider prize. Craddock earned the jersey for best young rider, while his Bontrager-Livestrong teammate Connor O'Leary is the best placed Utah rider. Sutherland also seized the purple sprinter's top.

The race continues Wednesday with a team time trial at the Miller Motorsports Park southwest of Salt Lake City. Teams will make three trips around the 7.25 km course for a total of 21.7 km. The winding automobile road course features more than a dozen wide, sweeping turns and relatively no climbing.

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