Tour of Utah: Kiel Reijnen wins stage 5 in Bountiful

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Kiel Reijnen (Trek Segafredo) finally claimed a stage at the Tour of Utah with a powerful sprint on stage 5. The Trek Segafredo rider timed his run to the line perfectly, coming to the front with 100 meters to go before holding off a late challenge from Tao Geoghegan Hart (Axeon Hagens Berman) in second and Alex Howes (Cannondale Drapac) in third.

Lachlan David Morton (Jelly Belly p/b Maxxis) survived a tough day to retain his race lead ahead of Saturday’s queen stage. The stage was marked by an eleven-man break that established a lead over the peloton. The bunch caught the move on the final climb before a breakneck descent into Bountiful for the finish.

BMC Racing and Trek controlled the peloton in the closing stages before Joseph Rosskopf (BMC Racing Team) opened up his sprint from a long way out. Reijnen, however, kept his powder dry, and only came through the crowd when he needed to. The win marked his first victory since moving to Trek Segafredo at the start of the season.

"Today was definitely kind of a more emotional win for me just because I didn’t really believe in myself for the first 100km of the stage, but the team did," Reijnen said. "Once we hit the circuits and got to the climb the first time and I felt the legs, after that I knew I had a good chance of winning if the break came back. So big thanks to the team for believing in me."

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How it unfolded

Friday’s fifth stage was packed with points for the classification riders, with three intermediate sprints and four KOMs on the 182.6km route from Antelope Island to Bountiful.

The riders circled Antelope Island twice, passing buffalo along the way, before making their way toward the first intermediate sprint in Hooper, 40km into the day.

The early climbs of North Ogden Divide and Trappers Loop, while challenging because the altitude, were fairly easy, wide slopes and did little to break up either the breakaway or the peloton. The real challenge of the day came near the finish as riders went up the short, steep climb of Bountiful Bench during two laps of the technical closing circuit in Bountiful.

Friday’s breakaway formed almost immediately from the start gun, with a group of 11 establishing before leaving the island. In the move was Axeon Hagens Berman’s Logan Owen, who won the same stage here last year.

Along with Owen were Tom Bohli (BMC Racing), Simon Pellaud (IAM Cycling), Julien Bernard (Trek-Segafredo), Chris Jones (UnitedHalthcare), Daniel Eaton (UnitedHealthcare) Frederic Brun (Fortuneo-Vital Concept), Brayan Sanchez (Team Jamis), Thomas Vaubourzeix (Lupus Racing), Evan Huffman (Rally Cycling) and Alex Cataford (Silber Pro Cycling).

"Our plan today was to try and save the team’s energy by putting a guy into the break so we didn’t have to pull, and Julien did a brilliant job with that," Reijnen said. "And when it looked like the break was really strong and might stay, that was OK too because we figured out of that group we’d definitely bet on Julien for the stage win."

Pellaud, who was stung by a bee during the stage, took the first intermediate sprint, while Eaton won the first KOM over North Ogden Divide. By the time the leaders reached Eden and the second sprint of the day, their gap had jumped up to more than five minutes. Owen, who had been dropped on the first climb, regained the group and took the maximum sprint points in Eden.

Jelly Belly-Maxxis, supporting overall leader Lachlan Morton, took control of the chase back in the field with help from Holowesko-Citadel, which was hoping to set up a reduced-bunch sprint for stage 4 winner Travis McCabe. The leaders’ gap was down to 2:40 with 42km remaining and the two trips up Bountiful Bench ahead.

The leaders entered the Bountiful circuits with just over a minute advantage, and attacks quickly started splitting up the group. Bernard, Jones, Huffman and Cataford took over the lead. Pellaud battled his way to the leaders to from a group of five off the front.

Bohli Bridged back to make a lead group of six, but he was soon off the pace again as they went up Bountiful Bench for the first time.

Bernard then jumped away 1km from the KOM, gaining a slight advantage over a chase from Huffman and Cataford. UnitedHealthcare’s Jones and Eaton caught the chasing duo as a second chase group formed from the peloton that contained TJ Eisenhart (BMC Racing) Matthew Busche (UnitedHetlthcare) ad Tao Georghean Hart.

Bernard started the final loop in Bountiful with a four-second gap over the chase group of four, and he was quickly back in the fold with them on the next lap. Busche jumpd away on the next trip up Bountiful Bench, but he was soon caught and passed by Axeon’s Eddie Dunbar.

With the rest of the breakaway group re-absorbed by the bunch, Team Jamis’ Janier Acevedo jumped away and bridged to Dunbar, and they were joined by BMC Racing’s Darwin Atapuma and Geogheagn Hart, who immediately launched his own attack.

All the shuffling and attacking over the final circuits whittled the main field down to about 25 riders and also propelled the bunch up to the leaders, who succumbed to the chase with about 6km to go. From there it was a madcap free fall down the technical descent into downtown Bountiful and the bunch sprint.

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