North American wrap: SmartStop's Kocjan leads Tour of Utah

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The Cedar City podium topped by Alison Powers (UnitedHealthcare)(Image credit: Deb Hill)

The Commonwealth Games have wrapped up and the spotlight is back on the North American racing scene at the seven-day Tour of Utah. The UCI 2.1 event kicked off a series of professional men’s races held during the months of August and September, including the USA Pro Challenge in Colorado, Tour of Alberta, the double WorldTour events in Québec City and Montreal, and the Bucks County Classic in Pennsylvania.

“The Smartstop Pro Cycling Team has worked very hard to step up their game in these prestigious races and everyone should take a little credit,” said Gord Fraser, the team’s second director at the race. “It’s a team sport and I’m truly glad to be a small part of it. Tomorrow is another day, and we’ll try our best to claim that elusive stage win. As today shows, anything is possible.”

The race kicked off in Cedar City on Monday with a 182.6km road race won by Moreno Hofland (Belkin), who took the early race lead. Kocjan was second on the day and three American riders sprinted to the top 10 including Eric Young (Optum p/b Kelly Benefit Strategies) in fourth, Kiel Reijnen (UnitedHealthcare) fifth, Tanner Putt (Bissell Development) eighth and Alex Howes (Garmin-Sharp) ninth. Robin Carpenter (Hincapie Sportswear Development) picked up full points in the two available climbs to take the lead in the mountains competition.

BMC’s Michel Schär took a solo win on the second stage while Kocjan led the bunch sprint across the finish line for second place, also taking the overall race lead. Reijnen sprinted in for fourth place, Putt took seventh and is leading the young rider competition, and Brent Bookwalter (BMC) round out the top 10 in the stage. Joseph Rosskopf jumped ahead of his Hincapie Sportswear Development teammate, Carpenter, and into the lead of the mountains competition.

UnitedHealthcare’s Jeff Louder, a resident of Utah, announced that he would retire from the professional peloton after a 14-year-long career. He won the Tour of Utah in 2008 while racing for the BMC team. He is hoping for a strong performance on the stage 6 climb up to Snowbird on Saturday, and will finish off his season at the USA Pro Challenge in Colorado and the US pro criterium championships in North Carolina.

Leah Kirchmann, the Canadian road, time trial and criterium champion, also went into the Commonwealth Games with a goal of winning the time trial, however, a crash during the rain-soaked time trial on Thursday caused her to lose valuable minutes and she placed a disappointing 24th. Her teammates Jasmine Glaesser cracked the top 10 and Laura Brown was 16th. Kirchmann was the top placed Canadian in the road race on Sunday, finishing eighth.

There was little rest after the Tour de France for some of its competitors including American rider Tejay van Garderen, who placed fifth overall at the French Grand Tour a week ago and then lined up for the one-day race in Spain on Saturday. He finished the race in 58th place while working for his BMC teammate and eighth-place finisher Greg Van Avermaet. American teammates Chad Haga and Lawson Craddock (Giant-Shimano) were also in the race and finished 82nd and 88th on the day.

American rider Shelley Olds (Alé Cipollini) sprinted to 10th place at the Sparkassen Giro elite women’s World Cup, won by Marianne Vos (Rabo-Liv), in Germany on Sunday. She has had a series of top-10 finishes on the world-class stage at the La Course by Le Tour de France, stages of the Giro Rosa, Tour of Zhoushan Island, Tour of Chongming Island, Festival Luxembourgeois du cyclisme féminin Elsy Jacobs, Grand Prix de Dottignies, Novilon EDR Cup, Ladies Tour of Qatar and at the Ronde van Drenthe, along with wins at the Winston-Salem Cycling Classic, GP Comune di Cornaredo and two stages at the Vuelta Internacional Femenina a Costa Rica.