We enter week 3 with a bang, ending stage 15 with a 7.5km climb at 10.8% to Mid Vail. The North American teams will be wanting to show themselves, as this is the final stage in the US of A.
Two guesses who the first attacker of the day is? It’s mister polka-dot Chaiyasombat, who simply never gives up! Even better news for McCormick is that numbers two and three, Azman and Grmay, have missed the boat! Number four in the KoM, Zordan, has made the right split and joins the polka-dot rider together with 19 others, many of them being names we definitely recognize from earlier breakaways: Plucinski, Croes, Roe, Main, Riesebeek, Rojas, Hacecky, Vuillermoz, Antonijevic, Haas, Hoem, Herrera, Girdlestone, Brandt, Revard, McNulty, Ablenado, Tarvis and Gillett. Best GC rider here is Glanbia’s Brandt in 16th. For now several teams are chasing, keeping the gap around 2’15”.
Before the breakaway tackles HC climb Crooked Creek they have to conquer Gyp Hill, a rather long but easy climb of second category. Zordan takes ten points ahead of Roe and Plucinski, with Chaiyasombat taking four points, which means his lead over the Cedevita rider is now 21 points. As an HC climb gives twenty points, this means the Italian will have to score on the final climb as well in order to overtake the Thai from McCormick. As we will soon start the ascent of Crooked Creek, the peloton is now 3’35” behind the breakaway.
And here they are, the breakaway of 21 at the foot of the HC climb! 7,1 km at 7.4%, with the peloton starting the climb 3’ later.
Zordan could near to only one point of Chaiyasombat here, knowing the Thai has given a lot already in this Tour and might get dropped. The McCormick rider still has enough energy for some mind games though, as he comes riding next to the Italian with 4 km to climb!
2 km to climb, still nobody dropped from the breakaway, which is also a sign of the pace not being extremely high. In the peloton they like what they see, as (mostly) sprinter domestiques make sure the gap stays around 2’30”!
Zordan attack with 1.5 km to the top, Chaiyasombat trying to follow!
But it’s a rather easy win for the Italian! Roe is the best of the rest, crossing the top in second and scoring 14 points.
But still a very strong Chaiyasombat managing to stay just ahead of Herrera and the others! The only way for the Thai to lose the polka-dots is by Zordan winning the stage! The peloton crosses the top at 3’45”, with still over 100 riders there.
50 km to the finish line as the breakaway reaches Eagle Veil, the point where the roads starts rising until the finish line. Obviously, until the final climb, the gradient is not that high. Sauber and Duolingo working hard, as the gap is down to 2’10”. Other teams such as Lierse, Eurosport and Indosat helping a bit as well here. Will they be able to close the gap on the slightly uphill 40 following kilometres, will the gap be closed on the final climb, or will the breakaway survive thanks to the domestiques in that group? Let’s find out!
Welcome to Beaver Creek, where we enter the final 20 km. Sauber has been using four riders in the chase, reducing the gap to only 50”! They need to be careful though, as they also did all (or much of) the work in other stages without any result, leaving leader Ranaweera without a team.
Carrefour decided to help a hand as well, which means the breakaway is caught with 11.5 km to the finish line. We’re definitely climbing already, but the final climb itself officially starts in 4.4 km. The riders can see the snowy mountain ahead of them already.
And we’re off! A peloton of 136 starts the final ascent of the day and the final kilometres in the United States! A strong Carrefour presence at the front with 6.6 km to go, as we hit slopes of up to 15%! The first 4.5 km of the climb are like this, but the final 3 km are a bit easier.
Number four Chamorro attacks with 5.5 km to climb, he’s quickly joined by Iranian champion Gilanipoor! Will the Kraftwerk domestiques react to this?!
Rumac and Moazemi are having none of it, attackers caught with 5 km to climb!
It’s a tough climb! 4 km to go and still on the slopes of now up to 18%, as the favourites are looking at each other! Who is the following rider to try something?!
It will have to happen in the ‘easier’ final 3.5 km! Behind the first 20-ish riders we see a split appearing, dangerous situation for the likes of Carapaz, Ranaweera, Brandt, Grmay, Zordan and Hoem!
2.5 km to go and we’re down to 21 riders in the leading group, as yellow jersey Nerz attacks! Will this be a Tour of America winning move?!
Novak and Min can’t or won’t close the gap, it’s up to domestique Diaz! At the back of the chasing group of 20, Kuss is in trouble!
Good work by the Hellofresh rider, the gap now ten seconds with 1.5 km to climb! At the back of this group, Gilanipoor is feeling the consequences of his attack from earlier!
The yellow jersey only has eight seconds under the red kite, but all of his nearest competitors are struggling! At the back of the chasing group of 13 we can see numbers two, three and four Warchol, Potocki and Chamorro! Number five Novak for the stage win and a nice leap in the rankings?!
He’ll have to come quick! Nerz still in the lead with half a kilometre to climb, behind them they start sprinting now!
But the Lierse rider also has to sit down, as it’s Diaz trying to award HelloFresh the stage win, overtaking the yellow jersey with 200 metres to go! The top GC riders all seem to be feeling their efforts of the earlier days now, as the other riders going for the stage win are Garby, Lunke, Aru and Denifl!
Into the final 100 metres! Diaz seems to be the strongest, but now sits down as Nerz accelerates again!
And the yellow jersey shows everybody who the boss is! Stage win for Mr. Tour of America, yet another stage win for Team Tour of America aka Kraftwerk Man Machine! Bonus seconds as well as ‘regular’ seconds for the yellow jersey today, this might have been his ToA winning move indeed! A strong Diaz in second ahead of Aru (3rd), Garby (4th), Lunke (5th) and Denifl (6th).
Novak then in seventh at 25”, with at an additional 15” Min (9th), Potocki (10th) and Girdlestone (11th). Losing around 50” to the yellow jersey are Carlsberg riders Eg and Warbasse, as well as Warchol and Chamorro. Cedevita leader Gilanipoor loses thirty seconds extra.
A very disappointed Ranaweera and Carapaz lose over two minutes again. They might need to rethink their strategy for the final mountain stages. The GC podium remains the same, but Novak and Aru are our new numbers four and five.
