Sprint race, sprint stage. Nothing special. 2/4 KOMs are today so important for that classification. The bulk of the focus will be on the finish though.
The attackers waste no time as we see Andersen, Van Dijke and Manakov are already doing their thing.
A large group of riders tried to get away, but as we see the peloton weren't letting that happen.
Van Dijke has a 2nd effort and is joined by Quispe. The duo open up a minute's gap.
The finish line is also one of the intermediate sprints and we see our two escapees just rolled through it, that's how hard the racing is right now. Behind riders are still fighting to get in the breakaway.
Erdenesuren and Taillefour are able to join them in time for the KOM sprint. Van Dijke is the punchiest rider and he scored the 5Â available points.
Van Dijke wins the intermediate sprint. He might be leading two classifications after today.
Van Dijke takes another 5 points and he will be leading the King of the Mountains. 55 km to go the breakaway has just under 3 minutes advantage left.
Tryg, Glanbia and Caja Rural combined their efforts to catch the escapees 7 km from the finish.
Glanbia has a nice looking train for Bennett and pretty much every sprinter in their slipstream. Caja is trying to set up their own for Guardini.
Nelson starts his final lead out with 1.5 km left. Domene is trying to do the same.
Bennett is delivered into the last 500 m. Everyone else is out in the open as well. Closest to the Irishman are Guerao and Matthews with Guardini between them. Picking up speed on the other side is Willwohl.
With 200 m to go it's the same riders that are vying for the victory. Boudat is trying with a late effort behind Willwohl.
In the end it's veteran Oscar Guerao that wins stage 1 ahead of Matthews and Willwohl! Guardini is 4th while Bennett lost steam in the end for 5th.
6th place goes to Boudat. Then it's Gibbons, Itami, Scully and Boivin rounding out the top 10.
Guerao leads the GC and points classification while Van Dijke leads both the KOM and U25.
USA Pro Cycling Challenge - Stage 1 
