Tour of Utah: Eric Young wins for Optum

Optum Pro Cycling's Eric Young took the biggest win of his career Friday at the Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah, winning the field sprint to take the stage 5 victory in front of Jure Kocjan (Team SmartStop) Kiel Reijnen (UnitedHealthcare).

“It's totally unbelievable for me personally and the team as well,” Young said. “We were so close on stages 1 and stage 3. We were really trying hard for those. So we rode pretty hard to get the break back today. Our three guys, [Tom] Soladay, [Mike] Friedman and Jesse [Anthony], really had to lay it on for that. I was just really happy to improve in my finishes in the first couple sprints and reward the guys with wining here.”

Garmin-Sharp's Tom Danielson finished safely in the field and will take a lead of 57 seconds over Chris Horner (Lampre-Merida) and Ben Hermans (BMC) into Saturday's Queen Stage.

The day started across the Utah border in Evanston, Wyoming, before making its way toward the summit of Bald Mountain, which at 3,260 meters above sea level is the highest point in the stage race. Several early breakaways formed in a tenacious crosswind but were pulled back by the antsy peloton. Finally a group of eight formed about 20km into the race.

BMC's Brent Bookwalter, who was in the first move of the day that got a bit of traction before the field pulled it back, went up the road again with Trek Factory Racing's Jens Voigt, Belkin's Maarten Tjallingii, UnitedHealthcare's Jeff Louder, Optum Pro Cycling's Alex Candelario, Jelly Belly's Serghei Tevtcov and Hincapie Sportswear's Joey Rosskopf and Oscar Clark.

Tvetcov was the best placed escapee in the general classification, sitting 4:10 down, and the field appeared reluctant to give the lead group much rope. The gap held below one minute until Tvetcov, Voigt, Tjallingii, Candelario, and Rosskopf sat up and dropped back to the lead group about 40km in.

“We were out there just drilling it and we weren't gaining time,” Louder said. “So finally we started to talk, like, 'What's up? Who's here? What's going on?' We realized that Tvetcov was second in the points (competition), and we were kind of wondering who was high in GC. So we knew it was going to be a tough battle to stay away with those guys. So everyone was saying, 'Are you going to go back? I'll go back if you go back?' And so everyone was looking around. It was actually Oscar Clark who attacked. I thought, 'Here's the opportunity.' And then Bookwalter was there, and that was it.”

Bookwalter, Louder and Clark continued on, and the gap began to go back up. The leaders built an advantage of 2:45 by the 50km mark, and the break appeared to have more life on the climb up Bald Mountain. Back in the field, Voigt attacked again before the bunch got to the feedzone, bringing Carlsen with him.

The duo was able to bridge to the leaders on the climb, while mountains classification leader Robin Carpenter (Hincapie) started his own bridging effort. Carpenter made contact 70km into the race, setting him up to win maximum points at the only KOM of the day at the top of Bald Mountain.

The leaders crested the climb with a lead of 3:30, and the advantage grew to more than five minutes on the ensuing descent, which reached speeds of 96 kph. In an unfortunate twist for the leaders, a headwind blowing up from the valley slowed their progress, and the field started cutting into their lead.

The gap was below three minutes heading into Kamas for the second intermediate sprint of the day. From there, the leaders raced back out of town for another 25km loop on the pancake flat farmlands surrounding Kamas. Crosswinds buffeted the riders on both sides of the circuit, which included a short gravel section, adding an extra challenge in the finale.

The gap continued to plummet as Optum, knowing that double stage winner Moreno Hofland (Belkin) had abandoned earlier in the race, chased for their sprinter.

“We realized Belkin probably wasn't going to chase to bring back the breakaway,” Young said. “But my guys were up to the task. They just kind of manned up and did it.”

When Louder dropped out of the lead group and the Optum riders started to blow after along day of chasing, United Healthcare took over the chase to set up Reijnen.

Up the road in the lead group, attacks from Voigt and Carlsen had dropped Louder, but the Hincapie riders held on. Voigt continued to attack, but Bookwalter was content to sit on his wheel rather than contribute to the pace.

“I know Jens was a little frustrated with me,” Bookwalter said. “ But I told him he had nobody to blame but himself. I've listened to so many post-race interviews with him when he says, 'I can't believe they didn't follow me. I can't believe they let me go. I can't believe they worked with me. I was so good.' So I'm not going to do the same stuff that everyone else does and let him ride away.”

The efforts up front went for naught, however, as the UnitedHealthcare train eventually brought things back together in the closing kilometers, setting up Young for the sprint win.

The Tour of Utah continues Saturday with the Queen Stage, a 172.6km route from Salt Lake City to the Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort.

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