Tour of Utah: Kuss solos to stage 5 victory atop Snowbird

Sepp Kuss (LottoNL-Jumbo) put an exclamation point on his Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah overall lead Saturday during the queen stage to Snowbird Resort, jumping away from the select GC group after countering several attacks and soloing to his second stage win of the race.

Kuss matched successive attacks from EF Education First-Drapac's Mike Woods and Joe Dombrowski a few kilomteres into the final climb, then simply rode away from the GC group that also included BMC Racing's Tejay van Garderen, who wore yellow for two days after the prologue time trial and started the day third overall.

"We got to the bottom of the climb and I just decided to ride my own pace," Kuss said in the post-stage press conference. "It was easier than having to deal with jumping with everybody. I didn't really know how many k were left in the climb, but I felt good, so I just decided to make a decisive move, put everybody on the back foot maybe and then just ride my own race. It ended up working out again today."

Israel Cycling Academy's Ben Hermans finished second, 39 seconds later, followed across the line by Trek-Segafredo's Peter Stetina at 1:18 and 2017 champion Rob Britton (Rally Cycling) at 1:27. Jack Haig (Mitchelton-Scott) finished fifth, also at 1:27.

Van Garderen, who wore yellow for two days after winning the prologue time trial, finished 31st, nearly seven minutes behind Kuss.

Kuss now leads Hermans in the overall by 1:29, with Dombrowski in third at 2:05, tied on time with fourth-placed Hugh Carthy (EF Education First-Drapac). Mitchelton-Scott's Jack Haig is fifth at 2:07.

How it unfolded

The 154.8km queen stage from Park City to Snowbird Resort threw two long climbs at the peloton as they went over Guardsman Pass and up Little Cottonwood Canyon to Snowbird in the final 50km.

The stage started with a category 4 climb in Jordanelle, then took in two intermediate sprints in Wolf Creek Ranch at 42.2km and in Park City at 95.5km. The category 1 ascent of Guardsman topped out at 110.7km, followed by a wide-open descent down Big Cottonwood Canyon to the final challenge of the day, the hors category climb to the summit finish at Snowbird.

After many attempts and reconfigurations, a breakaway that met with the peloton's approval finally got away, prompted by a Daniel Jaramillo (UnitedHealthcare) attack to take maximum points on the first KOM. Multiple groups bridged to the leaders until the breakaway swelled to 16 riders.

The large move was never able to get much of an advantage, and the make-up shifted as riders bridged and others dropped back. When the leaders went through the first intermediate sprint at 42km, the number of escapees was down to 10.

In the new group were Ruben Plaza (Israel Cycling Academy), Evan Huffman (Rally Cycling), Cam Meyer (Mitchelton-Scott), Kilian Frankiny (BMC Racing), Niklas Eg (Trek-Segafredo), Kiel Reijnen (Trek-Segafredo), Daniel Jaramillo (UnitedHealthcare), Jonny Clarke (UnitedHealthcare), Taylor Shelden (Jelly Belly-Maxxis) and Ivan Santaromita (Nippo-Vini Fantini).

Just 48km into the race, the leaders had 30 seconds on two chasers from Holowesko-Citadel and a minute on the field. Huffman was the best-placed escapee at 3:37 down, so LottoNL-Jumbo had room to play with as they led the chase.

The chasing duo eventually realised they weren't going to make the break and sat up, while the escapees extended their advantage to three minutes with 76km remaining. The gap went up another 70 seconds over the next 16km to build the leaders' advantage to 4:10 with 60km to go.

Guardsman Pass

Jaramillo took maximum points at the intermediate sprint in Park City, where the breakaway started the Guardsman climb with 4:05 on the field. Jelly Belly's Shelden was the first to pop out of the break on the climb.

In the field, LottoNL-Jumbo continued on the front, setting a pace that quickly whittled the bunch down to about 20 riders. The gap fell to 3:15 as Kuss and the GC contenders pressed on over the lowers lopes of the 12km climb. The gap continued to go down, and the leaders had 2:55 about halfway up Guardsman.

Reijnen, Plaza and Meyer lost contact with the group near the top of the climb, and by the time Jaramillo took maximum points on the Guardsman KOM, the leaders' gap was down to 1:50. Jaramillo's effort earned him a lead in the mountains classification, but with 12 points on the line at Snowbird it was anything but secure.

Jaramillo, Clarke, Huffman, Plaza, Eg and Frankiny went over the top as a group of six, but the trailing trio re-joined the leaders on the descent, where they held a gap of 1:30. Behind them, the peloton swelled back to 40 riders as others re-joined the group on the descent.

Snowbird

The leaders started the Little Cottonwood Canyon climb, a 10.5km ascent with pitches of 7.8 per cent that topped out at 2,466m of elevation, with just 40 seconds over the peloton. EF Education First-Drapac took control of the field on the flat road that connected the descent to the Snowbird climb, driving the pace and trying to shed as many riders as possible before the final climb started.

Frankiny jumped away from the breakaway and quickly opened a gap, while EF-Drapac's Nathan Brown set a pace at the bottom of the climb that immediately blew the peloton apart. Brown's effort swept up all the breakaway riders except Frankiny, who started the day more than 10 minutes down and wasn't a threat to the GC.

"I was thinking I need to try my luck now by my own," Frankiny said. "I was feeling pretty god on the climb before. So I tried it, but after a while Sepp and the others passed me."

EF-Drapac started pounding Kuss on the climb, with Woods attacking first and then Dombrowski countering. Kuss immediately marked Dombrowski, and the EF-Drapc rider sat up. Van Garderen (BMC Racing) latched onto Kuss' wheel as the race overall leader continued to look like the strongest climber in the race.

Kuss poured on more power, distancing himself from Dombrowski and then van Garderen. Israel Cycling Academy's Hermans set off in pursuit, but to no avail. Kuss sailed past Frankiny to take over the race lead, and Hermans dug deep to bring the young American back, but he was unable to make contact.

"I was having fun," Kuss said of his early attack, "but when I got the gap and saw Ben Hermans was behind me, and he's a really strong rider, I thought, 'Oh no, that's not really who I want chasing me right now because he's a real engine.' After that I was really hurting."

Hermans continued ahead of Stetina, who was ahead of the group that contained Dombrowski, Carthy, Haig and Luis Villalobos (Aevolo). Further down the mountain, Neilson Powless (LottoNL-Jumbo) rode with Jack Burke (Jelly Belly-Maxxis), TJ Eisenhart (Holowesko-Citadel) and Michael Ries (Trek-Segafredo).

Van Garderen languished further down the climb in the fourth group on the road after having watched Kuss ride away.

Hermans got close to Kuss, but the 23-year-old American put in another surge that distanced the Belgian for good, then held his advantage to the line, slapping hands with spectators in the final metres before the finish.

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