Leipheimer wins final stage at Tour of Utah

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Levi Leipheimer conquered the dauntingly steep slopes of the 17 km Empire Pass climb Sunday to take the stage win on the final day of the Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah but wasn't able to pull back enough time on race leader Johann Tschopp (BMC) to steal his third consecutive overall win.

Leipheimer (Omega Pharma-Quickstep) rode away from a small, very select group of six riders on the Empire climb, then reeled in leaders Rory Sutherland (UnitedHealthcare) and Timmy Duggan (Liquigas-Cannondale) before summiting the climb alone and zipping down the 13 km descent to the finish in a jam-packed and raucous downtown Park City.

"I definitely felt the pressure today having been the one who pushed for [the Empire Pass] climb and sort of in a way discovered it and told the organizers about it," he said. "And they actually put it in. I didn't know that they would, so it added a little pressure, but it turned out to be a good thing."

The 123.5 km final stage threw another 2,086 meters of climbing at the riders before the final podium and jersey winners were decided. The route covered terrain the race had never visited, including the private Wolf Creek Ranch development, which featured a 3.5 km climb that hit 22 percent in sections. Crossing the Heber Valley, the race briefly revisited Heber City and Midway before winding its way to the base of Empire Pass, which came 93 km into the race.

The long alpine ascent to the top of the pass had grades that reached nearly 20 percent, and the descent off the mountain was a technical test that claimed at least one crash victim who had to be transported a local hospital. Leipheimer crested the summit of the climb with 1:20 on a lead group that included Tschopp, second overall Leopold Koenig (NetApp), Steven Kruijswijk (Rabobank), Tom Danielson (Garmin-Sharp), Spidertech's Lucas Euser, RadioShack-Nissan's Chris Horner and Matthew Busche, and Bontrager-Livestrong riders Ian Boswell and Joe Dombrowski.

By the finish, the two-time Tour of Utah winner had maintained a 49 second gap over the group, which now included RadioShack-Nissan's Matthew Busche and Chris Horner. Tschopp started the day 2:07 ahead of Leipheimer and held onto his overall lead by 43 seconds over Busche and 49 seconds over Koenig. It was a bold move even for a veteran rider, and Leipheimer said he had some momentary doubts.

"I was suffering. I was suffering a lot," he said. "And when I saw 25 km to go, I thought, 'Oh my God, what did I do to myself.'"

The day started with a major breakaway that took hold coming off a small descent near the beginning of the stage and then took hold on the mostly flat run into the tiny towns Kamas before the ascent of Wolf Creek. The move escapees included Optum-Kelly Benefit Strategies' Jesse Anthony and Mike Creed, EPM-UNE's Jorge Castiblanco and Rafael Infantino, Bissell Pro Cycling's Carter Jones and Ben Jacques-Maynes, Liquigas-Cannondale's Tim Duggan, Bontrager-Livestrong's Gavin Mannion, Competitive Cyclist's Thomas Rabou, Sutherland and Duggan. The group built a maximum advantage of 3:05 on the flatland near the town of Midway before BMC started whittling it down.

A bridging group of three riders, including Cameron Wurf (Champion System), Ryan Roth (Spidertech-C10) and Michael Matthews (Rabobank), chased all the way through the valley and made contact at the bottom of the Wolf Creek climb as the lead group started coming apart just before the day's first KOM.

Cubides took off before the KOM and claimed maximum points, but the real battle behind was between Jacques-Maynes and Duggan, who started the day first and second in the mountains competition. Jacques-Maynes held a six-point lead before the day started and grabbed six points for third, adding one more point to his lead after Duggan scored five points for fourth.

The breakaway regrouped on the descent off Wolf Creek but was doomed by the BMC chase behind. Duggan escaped from the lead group on the lower slopes of Empire Pass, and Sutherland set off after him as the rest of the breakaway blew apart, spreading individual riders out along the road as the field started its ascent and quickly disintegrated, leaving only the best of the best in contention for the stage.

That's when Leipheimer jumped away from the leaders and quickly laid waste to Duggan and Sutherland, who fell off the pace and slipped behind the small group chasing the Omega Pharma-Quickstep leader. Duggan said he had prioritized a stage win over the KOM jersey, but in the end he wasn't able to grab either reward.

"I could have used a few more gears I think, but that was probably third or fourth on the list of my problems," Duggan joked later. "I was more looking after the stage, and if the KOM came with it that was great. Unfortunately neither happened. But hey, that's bike racing. You gotta give it a shot."

The chase group tried desperately but never caught Leipheimer, who salvaged an off week with the day's stage win. Kruijswijk led the nine-rider chase group in 49 seconds later with Koenig claiming third on the day and Tschopp riding in with them to save his jersey. The Swiss riders said his plan was to put in a maximum effort on the final climb and use his buffer of more than two minutes on Leipheimer to keep himself going.

"For me in my head, I knew that Levi had two minutes [to make up]," Tschopp said through an interpreter. "My strategy was to perform to the maximum. So it was quite difficult from time to time. There were just a few minutes in between, but I did what I needed to do get through the course. There were a few hard parts there, but I did what I needed to do."

The cushion Tschopp had over Leipheimer was due almost entirely to the poor stage 2 team time trial put in by Leipheimer's Omega Pharma-Qickstep team, which finished last out of all 17 teams in the race. But the veteran US rider said the fact that he couldn't overcome the deficit just showed how significant the race has become.

"It's a testament to how much the Tour of Utah has grown," he said. "The level of competition is so high that if you make a mistake or two like we did in the team time trial, then your race is over. But I was hoping to get a stage win out of this last day, and I was very happy to do that."

Sutherland took home the most aggressive rider jersey for his performance, while Jacques-Maynes held onto his lead in the mountains competition. Matthews won the only sprint of the day to take home the sprinter's jersey, and Dombrowski claimed another jersey for best young rider. UnitedHealthcare's Jeff Louder finished as the best Utah rider.

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