Keough wins for UnitedHealthcare

Image 1 of 35

UnitedHealthcare's Jocobe Keough overcame a late-race crash and a powerful early jump by Garmin-Sharp's Tyler Farrar to take stage 4 of the Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah. Liquigas-Cannondale's Marco Benfatto finished second, while Farrar hung on for third. Garmin-Sharp's Christian Vande Velde held onto the yellow jersey heading into Saturday's Queen stage.

A breakaway group of six riders that got away in the opening kilometers animated most of the day's racing before the field reeled them back about 800 meters from the line. Omega Pharma-Qickstep's Peter Velits joined Rabobank's Thomas Leezer, Argos-Shimano's Vann Huguet, Champion System's Craig Lewis, Bissell Pro Cycling's Jeremy Vennell and Bontrager-Livestrong's Jasper Stuyven in the ill-fated all day adventure off the front.

Stage 4, which offered up 220 km with 1,285 meters of climbing, kicked off at Xango HQ in Lehi. The mostly flat test headed south into the sage brush covered terrain of the Skull Valley desert before looping around and returning north for the finish in downtown Salt Lake City. The stage offered three intermediate sprints and time bonuses at the finish for the top three. Nearby wildfires played havoc with the air quality, but the blistering hot temperatures of the previous days subsided for the stage.

The make-up of the breakaway played well in Garmin-Sharp's hands. Huguet, who started the day more than eight minutes down, was the best-placed GC rider in the move, so Vande Velde's team was happy to see the group ride off very early in the race. And ride off they did, building a gap of nearly 11 minutes just 42 km into the race.

"It was good for us," Vande Velde said of the move that contained no real threats to the overall. "It was hard until we let the breakaway go. We had us and UnitedHealthcare working together trying to let that break go, and they did a great job controlling the breakaway. It was hard day. It ended up being a harder day than most people anticipated. There were some strong guys in that breakaway today."

But the majority of Vande Velde's teammates were able to sit in the bunch for most of the day, looking to some of the other sprinters' teams to take control and saving their own energy for the difficult mountain stages coming up on Saturday and Sunday. UnitedHealthcare's Rory Sutherland said his team took up the chase when no one else acted.

"Everyone put it on our shoulders straightaway it seems," Sutherland said. "It went out to 10 minutes. Garmin didn't do anything, and nobody moved, not even the other teams with fast guys. So we said, 'F it, if it's our responsibility then we're going to do it and try do it properly and do the best that we can to see that we could do.'"

Garmin, Team Exergy and Competitive Cyclist also threw some riders into the chase on the northern run to Salt Lake City, but UnitedHealthcare were the real heroes of the day, pulling back the breakaway and making all the work pay off with a stage win. Keough said he owed stage win to his team.

"It was thanks to [my teammates]," he said. "They pretty much rode from five minutes after the break went until the finish. So it was a real team effort. Our team was the first to commit. There are a couple hard stages the next two days, and we knew that everyone kind of wanted a bit of a break, and maybe even a lot of people were happy to have a breakaway maybe stick, so we wanted a bunch sprint.

But Keough did more than just finish off the team's effort. He overcame his own crash about 80 km into the the race when a rider swung away from a team car and took out his front wheel. UnitedHealthcare's sprinter scraped his back and blew apart his helmet in the crash, but he said he was more worried about letting down his team than he was about his own injuries.

"I was actually kind of bummed out because my teammates were all riding the front," he said. "I knew I had to get up and still give it a go, because I couldn't let those guys down. That was pretty much my first thought."

With Keough safely up and back in the bunch, his team and its helpers barreled down on the breakaway, whittling the lead down to just 45 seconds with about 3 km to go, guaranteeing a close call at the finish. Stuyven said he and his breakaway companions could taste victory.

"We were working very well together," Said Stuyven, who last month won a sprint from a select group at the summit finish of the Cascade Cycling Classic's Mt. Bachelor Stage. "I think with 3km to go everyone was hoping to make it to the finish. I was ready for a sprint. If it came to a sprint I think I'm one of the fastest. We were just driving to the line, and maybe with 1.5 km to go, I think Vennell was the first guy who didn't pull through, but it makes no difference I think. It was just 1 km too long."

With the breakaway back in the fold and the pace pegged on the streets of Salt Lake City, Keough settled in to try and cap off his team's effort to set him up for the win. But first he had to fight for the wheels in front of him.

"Optum [Pro Cycling team] came over the top of us a few hundred meters before the last corner," Keough said. "I was kind of battling the Optum guys because I was stuck on the outside, and [teammate Robert] Forster and Sutherland were in front of me. I couldn't quite get on their wheel, so I was kind of in the wind from before the corner. A few riders hit out around me, and I kind of let them in. Then Robert was able to go and keep the speed high for me. Tyler jumped, and I came on his wheel and did the sprint."

Stage 3 winner and sprint competition leader, Michael Matthews (Rabobank), finished just off the podium in fourth after finding himself out of position in the final kilometers.

"I just got a bit lost with 2 km to go," he said. "BMC decided to do their lead out on the other side of the road, and it took a lot of energy to get back to the front in the first 10 riders, so I just had no legs left for the finish after yesterday, such a long day."

UnitedHealthcare now has two stage wins in four tries as the race heads to the mountains for two brutal days of climbing to decide the overall race. Team leader Sutherland said he was proud of the team's effort, and especially happy for Keough, who has had a string of bad luck this season.

"You know everyone says, 'Oh, he's just a little crit rider,'" Sutherland said of his 25-year-old teammate. "But if you can win a 215 km stage here hard on the flats all day long in the heat and then step around guys like Farrar - you know he came back from behind Farrar - so that's a pretty important sign of who he is and what he is capable of doing. Pretty awesome."

Stuyven's work in the breakaway paid off with the jersey for most aggressive rider on the day. Matthews kept the sprint jersey he won on the day before. Wilco Kelderman (Rabobank) is still the best young rider, and Timmy Duggan (Liquigas-Cannondale) is the mountains leader. United Healthcare's Jeff Louder is the best placed Utah rider.

Finishing at the Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort, Saturday's Queen Stage features 162.8 km and 3,048 meters of climbing. The peloton will cross four counties and face more than three km of elevation gain knowing they still have one brutal mountain stage left on Sunday before the final GC is determined. 

Results