Kocjan Wins Tour Of Utah Stage Two

05 August 2015 01:53

Smartstop’s Jure Kocjan has won the second stage of the Larry H Miller Tour Of Utah.

Stage Two was a hundred miles long and from Tremonton to Ogden with an elevation gain of 4,630 feet and one which had Kiel Reijnen of UnitedHealthcare in the leader’s jersey.

Oscar Clarke of Hincapie Racing was the first to break and was joined Jay Robert Thomson in a group of six.

That break was brought back and a new break of Jay Thomson, Dan Eaton, Pierrick Naud, Mackenzie Brennan and Ben Jacque-Maynes. formed, taking a lead of 3.25 going through Bothwell.

MTN Qhubeka’s Jay Robert Thomson took the three points at the sprint at Brigham City to add to the points he had took in the first sprint.

With 37 miles to go, they were 2.50 ahead and were still two minutes ahead when they headed for the category three North Ogden Divide climb.

Dan Eaton of Axeon Cycling went for the KOM points as the peloton came up to swamp the rest of the break. Eaton took the points ahead of Brent Bookwalter of BMC and Chris Butler of SmartStop.

Bookwalter bridged to Eaton on the descent and took over the front running duties with a lead of thirty seconds over the peloton.

A group of ten riders which turned into a group of forty tried to bring them back but the duo extended their lead to a minute before heading towards three closing laps of 2.3 miles around Ogden on a sunny day.

Bookwalter and Eaton were caught and a group of twenty riders started on the closing laps with Team Smartstop who had five riders on the front.

Cannondale-Garmin then put a rider in Ben King on the front of a group of six riders which also included BMC’s Michael Schar. They were caught by the peloton and Irishman Phil Deignan took over with John Hornbeck also taking a turn.

The race leader led them over the line to start the last lap of 2.3miles but it was BMC who were on the front going under the flam rouge.

Robin Carpenter and Smartstop’s Jure Kocjan went head to head it was Kocjan who took the win and the ten bonus seconds in a photo finish in 3.37.27 ahead of Carpenter, Bookwalter and race leader Kiel Reijnen who keeps his race leader by four seconds, followed by Avila, Owen, Howes, Smith, Mannion and Thomson.

Source: DSG