Reijnen Wins Tour Of Utah Opening Stage

04 August 2015 11:45

Kiel Reijnen of UnitedHealthcare has won the opening stage of the Larry H Miller Tour Of Utah.

The opening stage was 213 kilometres long on mostly flat roads, with two climbs, starting and finishing in the town of Logan, the home of Utah State University and it started without Tom Danielson who was excluded from the start of the race due to a doping violation.

In the pouring rain, seven riders in Johann Van Zyl (MTN Qhubeka), Carlos Ramirez (Colombia), Joe Schmalz (Hincapie Racing) , Emerson Oronte (Team Smartstop), Greg Daniel (Axeon Cycling), David Williams (Jamis-Hagens Berman) and Josh Berry (Budget Forklifts) got into a break.

They took a lead of fourteen minutes with Greg Daniel taking the main points over the category three climb of Logan Canyon and at the first intermediate sprint, David Williams was first over the Idaho state border ahead of Joe Schmaiz.

Onto the final climb of Logan Mountain and Emerson Oronte started an attack which only Johann Van Zyl and Greg Daniel, who took the points over the top, could cope with.

With 22 miles to go, they were 3.35 ahead od Josh Berry and just under five minutes ahead of the peloton who put the hammer down and reduced the trio's lead to 1.45 with 7.9 miles left.

After climbing 8,010 feet, the run in to Logan where there was two, two mile laps to be completed, was on with the peloton only 25 seconds behind.

Only Van Zyl and Daniel were left on the front and they were caught by Alex Howes, Kiel Reijnen and Taylor Phinney of BMC, who has not race in over a year due to a leg injury, before the final lap started.

Phinney led the riders going under the flam rouge and for the next five hundred metres but when it came down to the sprint, Kiel Reijnen of UnitedHealthCare rode away to win in 5.09.02 ahead of Howes of Cannondale-Garmin and Phinney, followed by Daniel and Van Zyl.

Reijnen goes into the leader's yellow jersey with Greg Daniel in the KOM jersey.

Source: DSG