Viviani wins USA Pro Challenge stage in Colorado Springs

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Elia Viviani (Cannondale) blew away the competition at the USA Pro Challenge during stage 4 Thursday in Colorado Springs. The Italian sprinter had the dubious honor of being the one who denied the soon-to-be-retired fan favourite Jens Voigt a solo breakaway stage victory.

The German was pulled back largely by the Continental teams with 900m to go after a 40km attack from the day's breakaway, and Viviani finished off the catch with a commanding win over Martin Kohler (BMC) and Serghei Tvetcov (Jelly Belly).

"When we caught the guys in the breakaway, my teammates said it was only Jens in the front," Viviani explained. "It was difficult to catch Jens, he's a strong man, and a legendary man in the breakaways. Cameron Wurf and Alan Marangoni did perfect work on the final lap."

The team took a more conservative approach to the chase after suffering in the altitude in Aspen on the first stage, and only put part of their team into the chase until the very end, and the plan worked perfectly. "In the first stage, we hoped for the sprint and we worked all day and came away with nothing," he said. "Today, I think we had the perfect tactic on the final lap, we did strong work to get our first victory in Colorado for Cannondale Pro Cycling."

The general classification remained largely the same, with none of the top riders being distanced on the short, sharp circuit, with BMC able to have a relatively easy day, according to leader Tejay van Garderen.

"The day went perfect, in team meeting we went through all the scenarios of what could go wrong, and it seemed everything went right," he said. "We were able to get a group off the front without anyone threatening on GC and we were able to just sit in, and even let the breakaway win.

"The sprinters' teams wanted to control," Viviani continued. "And we just sat behind them all day."

Following two consecutive days when it took nearly two hours for a breakaway to establish, the opportunists didn't have to wait as long for their chance on Thursday, and a group of 12 formed in the opening kilometers of the 113km route.

In the group with Voigt were his Trek teammate Laurent Didier, Gregor Muhlberger of NetApp-Endura, Ruben Zepuntke of Bissell Development Team, Rob Britton of Team SmartStop, Oscar Clark and Toms Skujins of Hincapie Sportswear, Steve Fisher of Jelly Belly-Maxxis, Ben Jacques-Maynes of Jamis-Hagens Berman, Adam Phelan of Drapac, Danny Summerhill of UnitedHealthcare and Martijn Verschoor of Novo Nordisk.

The riders peeled away on the first of four 25km loops through downtown Colorado Springs and nearby Garden of the Gods.

The group built an maximum advantage of four minutes before the chase ensued, which was shared by Cannnondale, UnitedHealthcare, BMC and Optum. The advantage started to come down in regular intervals over the next several laps, until Jacques-Maynes attacked the group to go for the second-to-last KOM of the day on the third lap.

Voigt countered the Jamis rider's move, catching him on the descent out of Garden of the Gods and setting out for his solo adventure. The peloton was just over two minutes behind as Voigt continued to push the pace, holding a 2:30 lead on the peloton and 1:30 on the remnants of the breakaway with one lap to go.

The gap began to fall over the course of the final lap, coming down more quickly as the fatigue began to wear on Voigt on the final climb. He had 1:30 over the top, with Britton in pursuit as the last survivor of the breakaway.

The WorldTour teams seemed to take a back seat to the chasing, happy to give a retirement present to Voigt, but the Continental teams like Optum, Hincapie and UnitedHealthcare had other aspirations, and together with Cannondale they brought the gap down to just 20 seconds with 2km to go.

UnitedHealthcare's Kiel Reijen, who was hoping to add to his lead in the points competition, said he had hoped to see more work from Cannondale during the race.

"I didn't think Viviani was going to make it on a course like that," Reijnen said. "But the peloton rode pretty steady so he was kind of able to keep contact. His team, I could hear them debating a lot on whether they should ride or not. I wish they'd helped earlier. It wasn't really our job to be chasing, but we just had to keep an eye on things. We didn't want to bring Danny back, but we just had to make sure things stayed in check."

With many of the WorldTour teams content to sit in the bunch, it looked like Voigt might just hold on, but a highway overpass proved to be his undoing, and the peloton had him in sight with 1km to go. He was swept up with 900m to go, and then Viviani followed Ty Magner (Hincapie) off the front, easily beating the American in the sprint.

"I took the last turn at the last kilometer in 10th position," Viviani said. "I saw on the second stage that the Hincapie rider was fast, so I took his wheel. When he started with 300m, I was on his wheel, so it was perfect for me. My sprint is 200m, so when I saw 200m I went with maximum power.

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