Mancebo wins Tour of Utah as Sulzberger takes final stage

Bernie Sulzberger (Fly V Australia) overtook the OUCH-Maxxis sprint train roaring out of the final corner of the Downtown Salt Lake Criterium on Sunday to win the bunch sprint in final stage of the 2009 Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah. Sulzberger powered away from U.S. criterium champion John Murphy (OUCH-Maxxis) and Chris Barton (BMC Racing Team) in the final 200 meters to take the win.

Published August 23, 2009 03:40PM

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Results

By Brian Holcombe

2009 Tour of Utah: Francisco Mancebo (Rock Racing) celebrates his overall victory.

Photo: Casey B. Gibson

Sulzberger powered away from U.S. criterium champion John Murphy (OUCH-Maxxis) and Chris Barton (BMC Racing Team) in the final 200 meters to take the win.

Overall leader Francisco Mancebo (Rock Racing) finished safely in the pack to lock up his overall win as thousands lined the Library Park course. Darren Lill (Team Type 1) finished the week second overall, 46 seconds in arrears, while defending champion Jeff Louder (BMC Racing Team) stood on the third step of the final podium, a further 43 seconds behind Lill.

Hometown boy leads it out

Before the start, the peloton gathered for a moment of silence in honor of Larry H. Miller, founder of title sponsor the Larry H. Miller Group, who passed away earlier this year due to complications of type 2 diabetes.

A light rain soaked the downtown streets of the capital city Sunday morning, but the race rolled out on dry roads with local favorite Dave Zabriskie (Garmin-Slipstream) garnering wild applause as he led the peloton through the start/finish after one lap.

Mancebo’s Rock Racing teammates moved forward on the second lap, bringing the race leader safely to the front of the peloton in the second lap. Brent Bookwalter (BMC) and Justin England (California Giant Berry Farms) jumped away from the field a few laps later, picking up two companions when Zabriskie and David Veilleux (Kelly Benefit Strategies) bridged on the back straight.

Go straight to the light, turn right, repeat

The group worked hard, sharing the workload as they built a maximum advantage of 30 seconds on the flat, four-corner course surrounding Library Park. With Zabriskie, Bookwalter and Veilleux, each strong time trialists, in the break, Fly V and OUCH-Maxxis sent riders to drive the chase in the peloton.

The pressure at the front of the bunch whittled the group down behind, shedding two or three riders per lap as Phil Zajicek (Fly V) put in a succession of monster pulls to bring the break back with 33 minutes remaining. Counter-attacks followed, but the sprint teams would not allow anyone to move up the road so close to the finish.

OUCH-Maxxis brought their sprint train to the front with 12 laps remaining, placing Murphy near the front of the race, ahead of two Fly V riders and a mass of Rock riders.

Louder attacked the peloton at the final corner with one lap remaining, rolling solo across the start/finish to the screams of thousands of keyed-up race fans lining the barriers.

2009 Tour of Utah: Bernie Sulzberger (Fly V Australia) outfoxes the OUCH-Maxxis train to win the finale.

Photo: Casey B. Gibson

But the peloton swallowed him up on the final lap and OUCH-Maxxis led the group, with Murphy sitting second wheel, into the final corner, 200 meters from the finish. Winning an aggressive battle for Murphy’s wheel, Sulzberger shot by the OUCH-Maxxis leadout, diving into the final corner and igniting his sprint ahead of Murphy and Chris Barton (BMC). Sulzberger powered to the win in his final U.S. race before his team returns to Australia for a schedule of high-priority races this fall.

“Yeah, (I’m) very happy. It went to plan,” Sulzberger said. “The boys kept it together. They basically spent the whole race on the front just bringing back breaks. I can’t thank them enough and all I had to do was repay them.”

A hard week in the mountains

Mancebo’s Rock Racing team kept the race leader near the front of the action all day, with Oscar Sevilla driving the tip of the peloton throughout the stage. Michael Ball’s squad delivered their leader to his first win in the United States after six challenging days at high altitude.

Of his first Tour of Utah, Mancebo said: “This race was really important because it was my first victory in America. It was a race where you had to be strong every day. You could never rest.”

Lill, who won stage 3 atop Mt. Nebo along with the best Utah rider competition, lost time when he crashed in the technical corner leading into the finish descent in Tuesday’s prologue. he was happy to be home safely in second overall after the tense closing stage.

“Obviously it would have been nice to win, but I’ve got to be happy with second,” he said. “I guess the only consolation is being beaten by someone who has been top five in the Tour de France and races like that.”

Louder, who missed his chance at the overall win with a sub-par performance in the stage 3 time trial, said Macebo deserved his victory.

“I’ve been saying it all week: ‘The best man’s going to win,’ and Mancebo is just by far the most consistent and played the best tactic and he deserves to win,” he said.

Rock, which returned to domestic racing after spending much of the summer in Europe, leaves the Tour of Utah with the individual and team general classifications and one stage win.

Race note

David Veilleux (Kelly Benefit Strategies) won the overall sprinter’s competition, which entered Sunday wide open, scoring points from the breakaway in the day’s first hot-spot sprint competitions and holding on to take the green jersey.

Stay tuned for results and photos.