Young, Ewart win stage 2 at Tour of the Gila

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Eric Young (Optum Pro Cycling) out-kicked Team SmartStop's Travis McCabe and UnitedHealthcare's Marco Canola to win the stage 2 bunch sprint Thursday at the Tour of the Gila. The peloton caught a two-man breakaway of Robin Carpenter (Hincapie Racing) and Danny Summerhill (UnitedHealthcare) on the final mountain sprint of the day, and stayed together for the expected bunch sprint.

In the women's race, Annie Ewart (Optum) parlayed her two-rider breakaway into a stage win ahead of Olivia Dillon (Visit Dallas-Noise4Good). Redlands Bicycle Classic stage winner Alison Jackson (Twenty16-ShoAir) won the field sprint for third.

There was plenty of action early in stage 2 for the men, who made up for lost time after the stalemate in the opening stage. The California Giant Berry team kept things together for sprint leader Ansel Dickey but couldn't prevent Hincapie's Joe Lewis from getting over him in the first intermediate sprint. There were a number of attacks after the sprint, with six riders getting a small gap before being reeled back in by Unitedhealthcare. From that group, Oscar Clarke (Hincapie) and Cristiano Giraldo Montoya (Orgullo Antioqueno) kept going but the Orgullo rider sat on to protect the race and the move was chased down before the first KOM sprint.

The Orgullo team took charge on the climb, with Giraldo Montoya winning the sprint ahead of Gregory Brenes (Jamis) and his teammate Robinson Chalapud. The peloton split up on the climb, with two riders attacking and sparking a short-lived move that didn't last on the second KOM, which was also won by Giraldo Montoya.

Montoyo shone on the Inner Loop stage, sprinting for the mountain points and covering attacks in between, and was pleased to be able to don the mountains jersey. "It was a very fast race, especially in the dowhill. I saw a lot of crashes. I'm glad we were able to control the race, and I'm thankful that nobody in our team crashed and we were able to finish on the same time."

It wasn't until the descent that a breakaway could get clear, with Carpenter kicking off the move and being joined by Summerhill. The white-knuckle descent was plenty familiar with Carpenter, who had been training in the area in the week leading up to the race. Once joined by Summerhill, the pair worked to build up a 2:20 advantage, but two men were just not enough against the peloton.

SmartStop and Drapac pulled hard to cut into the advantage. It was down to just 25 seconds with 25km to go and the sprint finish was inevitable.

Dramatic day for Ewart

The Optum team scored its second win of the day in the women's race, with Canadian Annie Ewart coming back from a high-speed crash on the twisty, steep descent from the second mountain sprint, where she tangled with Unitedhealthcare's Scotti Wilborne, to bridge across to the attack of Dillon in the valley and then solo to the stage win.

After a literally up and down day, Ewart struggled to put her leg over her bike after the finish. She explained what happened in the wreck. "I was on her wheel, and I think the we were pushing the limits a little big," Ewart said of the crash. "It happens, you put on your breaks and you skid out. I was as much at fault as anyone. I think the adrenaline helped in the end.

"I went to the medics because I had a lot of blood coming out of my elbow, so I had them bandage that up, and when I got back to the group Olivia had attacked, and nobody was doing anything. So I thought I might as well go, too. We got time pretty quickly."

Dillon's attack followed a somewhat hum-drum start to the stage, where no move could get clear. Flavia Oliveria (Visit Dallas) claimed the first QOM, and DNA Cycling's Breanne Nalder was on the attack for the second, relegating Oliveria to second place, tied on points in the mountains classification with Abbott. The crash on the descent disrupted the peloton, and Dillon took that opportunity to launch the move that would decide the stage.

"We wanted to be in a good position for the Sappio descent. The bottom is usually where a lot of teams wait for their riders to catch back on, so we thought it would be a good place to attack," Dillon explained. "I attacked and was caught, then Anna Sanders attacked and was brought back, and then I went again. Annie came across and we just rode steady. I know this stage really well, so I knew we just had to keep it rolling."

Meanwhile, behind there was a bit of a stalemate between the teams and the gap ballooned to nearly eight minutes. Abbott said none of the other teams would help them chase. "It's a shame that nobody else was interested in defending their GC position or getting a stage win," Abbott said. "But I had confidence in my team that we could bring it back down to keep the GC."

Abbott sent her team to the front to chase, and brought it down to around five minutes, and with Ewart at 4:45 on GC, she could breath a little easier. On the final climb, her teammate Annie Toth started to put the nail in the breakaway's coffin and brought it down to three minutes. But Ewart was on a mission.

"I was starting to get nervous when we got a time gap of 2:30 and there were still 15km to go and a few more rollers, and I was hurting," Ewart said.

The gap was about 1:30 when she took a pull and turned around to find Dillon had been distanced.

"I don't even know how it happened, we were on the climb and she had pulled, then I pulled and then when I looked for her to come through again, I had a gap. I thought, I can't to stop now, I'll just keep going. I'm really happy. It's great that Optum men and women got the stage today! This is the biggest win of my career so far. I'm really happy."

Dillon was determined to hold on for second on the day, and she did by just six seconds over Twenty 16's Alison Jackson. "I came unhitched a bit and had to chase, but I was going to fall off my bike before I let that peloton catch me," Dillon said.

Annie Ewart (Optum) gets some help after todays huge effort (Jonathan Devich/epicimages.us)

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