Van Avermaet wins Tour of Utah opening stage

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Greg Van Avermaet (BMC) soloed to victory on the opening stage of the Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah and claimed the first leader's jersey of the six-day event. The 28-year-old Belgian jumped away inside the final kilometre and held off the charging peloton, which was led in by Michael Matthews (Orica GreenEdge) and US U23 criterium champion Ty Magner (Hincapie Sportswear Development Team).

 "I saw the finish yesterday and knew it was not a good finish for me because it was downhill," Van Avermaet said. "So I tried to do it different, and so I went in the last kilometre when it was already hard. I tried to attack and came through the last corner with a gap. I only looked back in the last corner and I just kept on pedaling, pedaling, pedaling, and I didn't put my hands up because I was expecting somebody, but nobody came."

The opening stage, 179.1km from Brian Head to Cedar City, was dominated by a two-man break comprised of Chris Jones (UnitedHealthcare) and Michael Torckler (Bissell), who attacked in the opening kilometres and at one point enjoyed a lead of 10 minutes.

"In that first kilometre nobody was moving around too much," Torckler said. "So I got to the front and jumped away and had one guy with me, Chris, and the peloton was happy with the situation. More guys is always better, but it was fun."

Torckler and Jones worked well together and decided early in the day to divide up the intermediate KOMs and sprints, with Torckler taking the mountain points and Jones grabbing the sprints. The escapees survived all the way to the 4.3km finishing circuit in Cedar City, but ultimately they were no match for a peloton motivated for a field sprint finale.

Orica GreenEdge and BMC were prominent at the head of the peloton and swept up Jones and Torckler early on the second of three finishing laps. An immediate counter-attack came from Jens Voigt (RadioShack-Leopard) and Swiss champion Michael Schaer (BMC), but their attack was soon neutralized.

The US domestic teams of 5-hour Energy-Kenda, Hincapie Sportswear and Optum-Kelly Benefit Strategies came to the front on the final lap, but Van Avermaet (BMC) jumped away with 600 metres remaining and hung on for a narrow solo victory in front of Matthews and Magner.

Matthews praised his team for its efforts to bring back the breakaway, but he was also disappointed with his own finish.

"We had to use our whole team to bring the breakaway back, so we didn't have much of a lead-out for the finish," Matthews said. "Greg slipped away, and we knew once he was gone we didn't have the proper lead-out to bring him back."

The 10-second bonus for the stage win bumped Van Avermaet into the yellow leader's jersey, and the 15 sprint points he earned at the finish also put the BMC rider into the lead of that competition. The Belgian now leads Matthews in the overall by four seconds.

Jones, who was celebrating his 34th birthday on Tuesday, claimed both intermediate sprints, earning 10 points and enough time bonuses to move into third overall. Although he didn't get the sprint jersey, Jones did earn the jersey for the day's most aggressive rider.

Torckler claimed ultimate points during both of the day's KOM spots to earn the climber's jersey, but he lost more than three minutes in the final two circuits through Cedar City and is now 114th overall. The 26-year-old rider from New Zealand has had to overcome a serious knee injury and getting hit by a car last year, and he said the day's result was gratifying.

"This is very special," Torckler said. "My first comeback went really well. I won a few races, and this is really my first result since that car accident. So it's cool, I'm really excited."

As predicted, the general classification battle didn't materialize on the first day. Van Avermaet said he does not expect to wear yellow all the way through the end of the race and will instead look for more opportunities for a stage win while working for BMC's overall hopefuls, Stephen Cummings and Yannick Eijssen.

RadioShack's Chris Horner flatted on the second of the closing circuits but got a bike from teammate Hayden Roulston and finished with the same time as the group. His teammate Matthew Busche, who finished second overall last year, said there were a few moments of concern when the break still had a six-minute gap late in the race, but ultimately the stage went well for his team.

"Those guys were really strong, so chapeau to them," Busche said of the breakaway riders. "Those two guys put out a heck of an effort, and we had to chase hard to get them. I assume tomorrow we'll see a little more action."

Wednesday's stage 2 features three major climbs, the last of which ascends 1,335m over 43km. The stage ends with 845m of gradual elevation loss over the final 38km to the finish in Torrey.

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