Dombrowski wins Tour of Utah

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One day after winning his first professional race, Joe Dombrowski claimed the first overall stage race victory of his career by winning the Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah on Sunday in Park City.

Drapac's Lahlan Norris took the seventh and final stage of the race in a photo finish from BMC's Brent Bookwalter, with Natnael Berhane (MTN-Qhubeka) third.

"I'm pretty excited," Norris said. “This is a huge win for me and for the team as well. We came here to win a stage, and unfortunately it was a bit hillier than we thought with out sprint boys, and it was up to the skinny guys, so I was glad I was able to take a win."

Cannondale-Garmin's Dombrowski finished ninth on the day to claim overall victory ahead of stage 5 winner Michael Woods (Optum Pro Cycling) and Bookwalter.

The win also marks Dombrowski's return to top form after several years of injuries and illness., including an operation on his iliac artery last year.

"So far it's been a really good year for me and I've sort of made steady progress," he said. "I think anytime you have a long hiatus like that, you fix something and you think you're going to go straight back to the top. But it doesn't always work that way.

"It's not a linear progression," he said. "But, yeah, I think this is the best yet since then, so I'm happy to be back and racing healthy again."

The win was especially good for Cannondale-Garmin, given the news at the beginning of the week that two-time Utah champion and Dombrowski's teammate Tom Danielson had tested positive in July for synthetic testosterone.

"I said to the guys on the team bus the first day, 'I think we can still win this race. And I think with you guys individually we can win stages as well, so let's not focus on that and let's just focus on the race and see what we make of it and be as positive about this as we can,'" Dombrowski said. "I think it was a good week for us."

How it unfolded

Sunday's 125.5km final stage, which started and finished in Park City, was relatively short but packed a huge punch. The day featured just two KOMs, the category 2 climb through Wolf Creek Ranch and the daunting climb of Empire Pass that topped out at 2,726 metres of elevation and led to a technical 8km descent to the finish

A breakaway of 12 riders formed in the opening kilometres, with Taylor Phinney (BMC), Sam Spokes (Drapac), Songezo Jim (MTN-Qhubeka), Tanner Putt (UnitedHealthcare), Edwin Avila (Team Colombia), Luca Chirico (Bardiani-CSF), Ty Magner (Hincapie), Rob Britton (Team SmartStop), Carson Miller (Jamis-Hagens Berman), Angus Morton (Jelly Belly-Maxxis), Griffin Easter (Airgas-Safeway) and Jack Bobridge (Budget Forklifts) escaping the field.

The best-placed breakaway rider was more than nine minutes in arrears, but even so the field was not eager to give the break much leash on the short stage. The leader's biggest advantage of the day was 3:45 about 31km into the day and by the time they hit the bottom of Wolf Creek Ranch the Cannondale and Optum led chase had whittled it down to 3:10.

As the leaders went up the climb, they started losing time precipitously, and as the gap neared two minutes, UnitedHealthcare's Janez Brajkovic and Colombia's Castiblanco tried to bridge. They made it about halfway to the leaders, but the field eventually pulled them back.

The breakaway began to splinter on the climb, and their advantage dropped below two minutes. But they came back together on the descent out of the ranch and were 12 strong again heading through the town of Midway toward Empire Pass.

The cooperation amongst the leaders didn’t last long, however, as Putt slipped away from the group, followed by Phinney, Avila and Easter.

Putt continued on solo as the three chasers were absorbed by the field. Counter attacks started to fly as more riders hoped to bridge to Putt. Rob Britton set out on his own and soon passed Putt, who faded back into the field as a select group started to form behind Britton.

In the new chase group were Dombrowski, Woods, Bookwalter, Natnael Berhane (MTN-Qhubeka) Frank Schleck (Trek Factory Racing), Daniel Martinez (Colombia) and Rob Squire (Hincapie). Bookwalter briefly lost contact with the group but fought his way back with Norris. The group was also joined by Chris Horner (Airgas-Safway) and Lachlan Morton (Jelly Belly-Maxxis) to form a chase group of 10.

Britton fought to hold his lead over the top of the climb, but the chase caught him several kilometres from the summit. More counter-attacks flew, but the leaders crested Empire Pass together.

Bookwalter and Norris lit out on the descent, gaining a gap that looked promising, but Norris briefly lost contact. He was able to claw his way back, however, as he flew up on Bookwalter's wheel and then went to the front to press the pace even harder.

"Last week we stayed up in Deer Valley, and we were regularly hitting about 120km/h down that straight section," Norris said. "So I'm pretty sure that would have been something similar when I was gradually getting back onto the back of Brent.

"It was super fast, but I knew the descent pretty well," he said. "I actually said to the mechanic this morning to let 10 psi out and I'd give red-hot crack hot in the descent. So I had that planned and it was really good to have that plan come together.

As the duo entered Park City and made their way to the finish on Main Street, Bookwalter railed the final corner and had a gap, but Norris was able to make the ground and pass the BMC rider right on the line.

"I actually knew it was quite a long drag and I didn't want to go in there first," Norris said. "I've got a little bit of steady acceleration, but I don't have a lot of length in my sprint so I had to make it pretty short and sweet. I guess I judged it pretty well."

Bookwalter lamented that he unfortunately has the same type of sprint as Norris. He said the team watched a video on the bus before the stage of former BMC rider Cadel Evans winning last year's stage on the same course, and Evans burst out of the final corner first to take the stage win.

"It was full gas to the line," Bookwalter said. "I think I took a little gap and then head down, buried myself and gave it everything I had, so no regrets. It was just a good powerful and tactical sprint by Lachlan."

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