BOULDER, Colorado (VN) — Rory Sutherland (UnitedHealthcare) won atop Flagstaff Mountain on Saturday, but it was Levi Leipheimer (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) who lit up the race, leaving the other contenders in his dust on the final ascent and setting the stage for a no-holds-barred battle on Sunday in the 2012 USA Pro Challenge’s final individual time trial.
Sutherland attacked a crumbling break to take the stage ahead of Fabio Aru (Astana) and Jens Voigt (RadioShack-Nissan). But Leipheimer followed, leaving race leader Tejay van Garderen (BMC Racing Team) and the other contenders in his dust, and rode into the overall lead with just one stage remaining — Sunday’s time trial in downtown Denver.
The 102.8-mile stage, which included 10,000 feet of climbing, took the peloton from Golden to Boulder via Nederland, the Peak to Peak Highway and Lyons. Riders faced the grinder of Lee Hill before tackling Flagstaff, a legendary climb just above Boulder that ascends 1,200 feet in just 3.5 miles.
The attacks began from kilometer zero, with Camilo Castiblanco (EPM-UNE) clearly eager to strip Garmin-Sharp’s Tom Danielson of his red mountains jersey and Voigt being … well, Jens Voigt. Teammate Chris Horner worked himself into the early action too, as did U.S. pro road champ Timmy Duggan (Liquigas-Cannondale) and Ben Day (UnitedHealthcare).
A break finally coalesced, containing Voigt, Robigzon Oyola (EPM-UNE), Alex Howes (Garmin-Sharp), Serghei Tvetcov (Exergy), Jake Keough (UnitedHealthcare) and Matt Brammeier (Omega Pharma-Quick Step).
A chase group of seven bridged to the sextet, among them Sutherland and George Bennett (RadioShack), but the escape was by no means settled as rider after rider leaped out of the pack and tried to hook up with the leaders.
In the end, a 13-man break was out front, containing Aru, Howes, Bennett, Voigt, Duggan, Sutherland, Oyola, Paolo Longo Borghini (Liquigas-Cannondale), Chris Jones (UnitedHealthcare), Rubens Bertogliati (Team Type 1-Sanofi), Biao Liu (Champion System), Francisco Colorado (EPM-UNE) and Chris Baldwin (Bissell).
The escapees had four minutes in hand as they rolled into Boulder, pursued by Carter Jones (Bissell) and Joey Rosskopf (Team Type 1), who were stuck in no-man’s land and making little headway. BMC was massed on the front for race leader Tejay van Garderen.
Colorado was best-placed in the break, just 42 seconds off the lead, and thus was the yellow jersey on the road.
Jones and Rosslopf soldiered grimly along for miles before finally falling back to the bunch. Ahead, meanwhile, Colorado and Bennett briefly attacked the break, but decided against continuing and likewise slipped back to their group with 56 miles to race.
Riding down toward Lyons the escapees were still holding onto an advantage of some five minutes. But with Colorado refusing to drop back it was doomed from the start, though BMC was getting no help back in the bunch.
With 20 miles remaining the break still had four minutes in hand as it approached Lee Hill Road. And then Voigt punched it, taking Bennett with him, launching him toward the penultimate KOM and blowing up the break in the process.
Colorado went after them and caught Voigt as he came off the gas, then went after Bennett. But the RadioShack rider carried on and took the KOM, which was lined left and right with crazed spectators.
Behind, Garmin finally lent a hand to BMC. As the peloton crested Lee Hill Road, van Garderen was down to just one support rider.
The break reformed on the descent back to Boulder, but then Oyola launched his own attack. Voigt shut that down in short order, and then Bertogliati attacked. The RadioShack man snuffed that one out, too.
Then, inexplicably, Colorado looked over one shoulder and fell out of the break as it rounded a crowd-packed corner with a half-dozen miles left, perhaps content to have taken the mountains jersey.
The break set up for the final ascent as the bunch closed to within two minutes — and then Voigt attacked and led the race onto the lower slope of Flagstaff Mountain. The indomitable German quickly took a sizable lead — but Sutherland set out after him, reeled him in and went on past.
Behind, van Garderen began moving forward, and Leipheimer marked him. Christian Valde Velde (Garmin) was hanging tough, too. And then best young rider Joe Dombrowski (Bontrager-Livestrong) had a dig.
Van Garderen reeled him in and brought the others with him.
Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas-Cannondale), wearing the most-aggressive-rider jersey, was next to attack. He too was brought back.
And then Leipheimer went. The race leader led that pursuit, but the defending champion was simply screaming up the hill, picking off rider after rider from the disintegrating break, and van Garderen was left struggling in his wake. Mountains leader Danielson was nowhere to be seen; he could cross nearly two minutes down on the day.
Leipheimer would not catch Sutherland, but he didn’t need to. A solid time trialist, he just wanted to get an early start on defending his Pro Challenge title in the race of truth in Denver.
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