Magner wins Tour of Utah opener in Logan

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After 212km, the opening stage of the 2017 Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah came down to a bike throw, and Ty Magner (Holowesko-Citadel) won by a nose over the late-charging Chris Lawless (Axeon Hagens Berman) and Travis McCabe (UnitedHealthcare).

Magner opened up the sprint in Logan and seemed to have gone too early, but managed to time his bike throw perfectly to win by a centimeter, giving his team plenty of podium time as the stage winner, overall leader and points classification leader of the race. Magner benefited from a lead out by teammate John Murphy in a chaotic finish on the wide roads leading to the finishing straight.

"Murph and I were talking, and we said, ‘If we get separated we get separated. We can’t try and stay too close together this whole time because it’s a five-lane road. Everybody can keep coming,'" Magner said in the post-stage press conference.

"Coming into the last K I think I saw Travis coming up the right side, and saw some Rally guys going up the left side. Even further to the left there was a BMC guy going. I swung all the way right and got on Travis, and then followed Travis all the way up to the final corner. Murph came up my inside, and we just found each other again through the corner, which is kind of what we said would happen. It was all over the place, that last 2km, really."

McCabe said the chaos on the closing circuits led to a big fight for the final corner.

"Like Ty said, it was spread out the entire way," McCabe said. "That makes it really difficult to have teams control for the sprint."

How it unfolded

The 212km opening stage started and finished in Logan, with two categorised climbs in the out-and-back course that used a loop around Bear Lake for the turnaround.

The stage started climbing immediately out of Logan, with the first category 3 climb through Logan Canyon topping out just 51km into the day. From there, a mostly flat stage led to the climb back out of Logan Canyon and a 60km generally downhill run to the finish.

The peloton was feeling stingy in the early going, as multiple groups attacked the pack, but nothing was able to stick until a group of 10 formed midway up the climb.

In the group were Josh Berry and Jacob Rathe of Jelly Belly-Maxxis, Miguel Angel Benito (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Tyler Williams (Israel Cycling Academy), Andres Diaz (Cylance), Brian McCullough (Elevate-KHS), Eder Frayer (Elevate-KHS), Cortlan Brown (Hangar 15), Andrei Krasilnikau (Holowesko-Citadel) and Simone Andreetta (Bardiani CSF).

"Getting this jersey was on of our goals today, along with the sprint," said Rathe, who placed second on both KOMs and took home the mountains jersey as his prize. "It was kind of a hard start. It didn’t go immediately, and I thought the breakaway that eventually went was relatively dangerous with quit a few teams in it and 10 riders."

Once the lead group snapped the elastic from the bunch, the gap started going up precipitously. The leaders had five minutes by the time they reached the first KOM, where Williams took top honours, and the gap ballooned to a maximum advantage of 7:45 on the flat lands around the lake 72km into the day.

From there, concerted chasing from Rally, Caja Rural, UHC and Israel Cycling Academy started eating into the leaders' gap. Berry took the first sprint, and the gap dipped below six minutes for the first time at 101km. The advantage was down to five minutes just 16 kilometres later, and the chances for a catch started to look good.

On the climb to the second KOM, the lead group whittled itself down to just Rathe, Andreetta, Benito, Frayer and Krasilnikau, left to carry on.

The gap continued to come down once the leaders were over the KOM and on the long descent through Logan Canyon. As the peloton approached the break, attacks started flying from the breakaway, but none was able to escape the breakaway companions.

As riders dropped out of the move, Krasilnikau and Benito were the final riders out front, but their day out also soon came to and end.

The peloton eventually made the catch with about 8km remaining, and the bunch kick looked inevitable. The peloton entered the two 3.1km closing circuits in Logan together.

Axeon Hagens Berman led the peloton onto the finishing circuits, but no one team had full control over the pace, with Jelly Belly, Caja Rural, Rally and UnitedHealthcare all amassing at the front. With one to go, Holowesko-Citadel overcame a mishap that saw some of their riders go off-roading and took the lead with Axeon.

Eric Marcotte (Cylance) attacked inside the 2km to go banner, but was closely marked by Chad Beyer (Hangar 15). Swiss champion Sylvan Dillier (BMC) led the peloton onto the finishing straight, but it was Holowesko that opened the sprint. Magner held on barely to take the stage and overall race lead.

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