Jason Donald wins first stage and dons the yellow jersey at Utah

Posted on 13. Aug, 2008 by lyne in race

A pretty uneventful day well apart from the missed turn in the race itself today. The 112 riders were happy to let a break get away and controlled the gap to keep the time under control.

In the end, Garmin/Chipotle’s Jason Donald won the 3-man sprint from his 93-mile or so break companions to win the first stage and take a hold of the first leader’s jersey at the Tour of Utah. Sheldon Deeny (Fan Sports Network) was second and Brad White (Successful Living) finished third. As expected it was a hot day, but the wind was a bit calmer than predicted.

Pretty much from the start, attacks were made to launch the break, and counter move from Deeny, White (Successful Living) and Jesse Gordon (Canyon Bicycles Utah) was off and quickly gained a minute. A lone chaser, Donald, made to move to bridge and the trio waited for him and kept on going and going. The gap went up to 7 minutes, before the big boys back in the field got serious and set a high tempo. Mostly Rock Racing, but some help from Bissell, BMC and Toyota-United brought the gap down, but the trio still had 20 seconds on the field when the came to the finish line. Ricardo Escuela (Successful Living) won the field sprint for fourth place.

Now, the missed turn. It seems that the lead group took a wrong turn but the field stayed on course. The commissaires brought back on course and the field volunteered to be neutralized… or so I’m told. Unfortunately, due to other (mis) adventures I missed that part of the race and the next KOM. But a great quote from Best Young Rider Ryan Anderson (LandRover-Orbea) on the forced break: “We got a nice little break, got a bathroom break out of it.”

Tomorrow is the day that we see who’s got the legs in leg-burning, leg-busting stage 2. An 84.6-mile (137 km) and includes 10,585 ft (3,226 meters) of climbing over 4 rated climbs to finish in a downhill to the line in Salt Lake City. Hopefully, I’ll get to see most of it.

And the trio is off