Tour of Utah: Piccoli wins prologue at Snowbird

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James Piccoli (Elevate-KHS) upset the bigger-named riders on Monday at the Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah, winning the prologue time trial by five seconds over Lawson Craddock (EF Education First) and six seconds over Romanian time trial champion Serghei Tvetcov (Worthy Pro Cycling).

Piccoli covered the challenging up-and-down 5.3km course at Snowbird Resort in 8:37, knocking Craddock off the hotseat with just four riders left on course. Of the remaining riders, only Tvetcov could come near the 27-year-old Canadian's time. João Almeida (Hagens Berman Axeon) was fourth, also at six seconds, followed by Kyle Murphy (Rallly UHC), the early leader, at 11 seconds.

The win continues a stellar season for Piccoli, who has won stages at the Tour de Taiwan, the Tour de Beauce and the Tour of the Gila, where he also won the overall.

"Today at Snowbird was a really tough prologue," Piccoli said. "We came to see it with the team a couple of days ago, and since then I've ridden it a couple of times to try and refine our pacing strategy and how we wanted to approach the day because it was quite complicated with the altitude here at Snowbird and the corners and the tricky up and down pacing strategy."

Elevate-KHS is a relatively new Continental team, having moved up to UCI level in 2016. The team earned its first invitation to the Tour of Utah the next season, and Piccoli finished 10th overall after joining the team a couple weeks prior. He had to abandon last year's race after the prologue, so he stormed back into Utah this year ready to contend.

"Judging by the stages to come and some of the climbs that are planned for the Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah, I don't think seven seconds is going to be the difference between winning and losing," he said. "I think it will be more like minutes up Powder Mountain, but it's a really great confidence boost to blow out the legs and show we have good form.

"I'd like to thank everyone from Larry H. Miller group for inviting us to the race two years ago and putting their faith in us. So this year to wear the jersey is pretty special. We'll cherish it as long as we can and fight on."

How it unfolded

The prologue course at Snowbird started climbing almost immediately out of the gate. The course included 200 metres of elevation gain before a screaming descent back to the finish. It was not a power course, but favoured the climbers instead.

EF Education First announced before the stage that pre-race favourite Daniel Martinez was ill and would not take the start, leaving the day wide open.

Murphy set the best early time of 8:49, a mark that would stick until 53 riders later when Craddock crossed the line in 8:43. Many came close, but none was able to beat Craddock’s mark until Piccoli crossed the line. Almeida put in another upset result with his fourth-place ride at 8:43 to tie Craddock.

Results