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The shortest stage on this year’s Tour of Utah sees the riders tackle a challenging seven circuits around Salt Lake City. This will be the last opportunity for the sprinters in this race and will be decisive for the points classification competition.
Today’s stage in the past has been extremely difficult, and brought out the punchy sprinters. Past winners on this course include Michael Matthews (2013) and climber Janier Acevedo (2011).
The circuit itself is extremely lumpy, with one key climb on the loop, which is the finishing ramp.
There are two intermediate sprints as the riders cross with four, and two laps to go.
With the stage being so short, expect fast, attacking racing, almost like a long criterium in fact. However, I expect this to be a bunch sprint. There is only a slim chance of a breakaway or late attack staying away, due to the long descent coming into the final kilometre.
You would think the sprint teams would be able to keep the race together, as the only real climb is the one up to the finishing ramp. The only other hill is the first 5 kilometres, which are mostly just false flat.
On today’s stage, after yesterday’s long sprint, I cannot go past Eric Young. I have not seen such a dominate sprint for a while now, and the strength he showed to sprint from 400 metres to go was fabulous.
However, he will have stiff opposition from yellow jersey wearer, Jure Kocjan, who finished third on the uphill finish yesterday to go with his win on Stage 2. His team have always positioned him well so far this race, and have had the numbers at the front at key points in the race to ride for him.
SmartStop’s lead-out for Kojcan on Stage 2 shows they have the best organised lead-out train in this race, but can they do this on an uphill finish? It will be interesting to see.
With Kiel Reijnen losing the yellow jersey yesterday, it releases United Healthcare from doing the lion’s share of the work controlling the break on today’s stage. With John Murphy as the final lead-out man for Reijnen, he could potentially win another stage today.
Other riders to look out for today include Wouter Wippert, Dion Smith, Logan Owen, Sonny Colbrelli, Brent Bookwalter, Robin Carpenter, Edwin Avila and Lucas Haedo.
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