UnitedHealthcare bringing balanced roster to Tour of Alberta

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UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling team has released its roster for next week's Tour of Alberta, with Travis McCabe on hand for the sprint stages and climbers Janier Acevedo and Jonny Clarke likely taking up the team's GC ambitions.

The eight-rider roster also includes Alex Cataford, Daniel Eaton, Chris Jones, Lachlan Norris and Tanner Putt.

The four-day Canadian race starts September 1 with a stage that takes place entirely within Jasper National Park, finishing at Marmot Basin Ski Resort, the only mountain top finish of the race.

Stage 2 is a relatively flat circuit that starts and finishes in Spruce Grove, about 30km east of Edmonton, while stage 3 is another mostly flat day on a circuit that starts and finishes in Edmonton proper. The final stage reprises the traditional Edmonton circuit race, a hilly affair that has been won both from a reduced field and from breakaways.

Absent from the Alberta roster is Gavin Mannion, who was UnitedHealthcare's top rider earlier this month when he finished second overall at both the Cascade Cycling Classic [2.2] and the Tour of Utah [2.HC]. McCabe then picked up the team's GC banner at the Colorado Classic, finishing 10th overall after hitting the podium on three of four stages.

Putt took out a stage win in Alberta last year by infiltrating the breakaway on stage 2 and then just barely holding off the field at the line in Olds. Cataford, the only Canadian on the team's roster for Alberta, has competed in the race the past three years and finished fifth overall last year behind Robin Carpenter (Holowesko-Citadel), Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo), Evan Huffman (Rally Cycling) and Colin Joyce, who was riding for Axeon Hagens Berman at the time.

UnitedHealthcare for Tour of Alberta: Janier Acevedo, Alex Cataford, Jonny Clarke, Daniel Eaton, Chris Jones, Travis McCabe, Lachlan Norris, and Tanner Putt.