Dygert Owen robs lead from Chapman, has 1-second lead on GC after Tour of the Gila Stage 4 crit
(Silver City, NM) Chloé Dygert Owen’s relentless efforts to pick up time bonuses throughout Tour of the Gila finally paid off Saturday in primetime as she robbed the general classification lead from Australian Brodie Chapman (Team TIBCO- Silicon Valley Bank) at the Downtown Silver City Criterium.
The Sho-Air TWENTY20 rider, Olympic silver medalist and world champion surged to the line first during every sprint bonus opportunity, with Chapman sticking to her like glue every time for second-place bonus seconds in an effort to protect her lead.
“Our plan was to get the red today, and we did, but we weren’t going to be too bummed if we didn’t get it, and there’s seconds tomorrow too, so overall it was a super great day,” Dygert Owen said. “It was definitely the blue train. We were totally covering everything, and we made a statement out there today. Super proud of the girls — they just did a great job for me, and now we’re in red and hope to keep it tomorrow.”
Friday’s crit saw big action from start to finish by Hagens Berman | Supermint, who launched consecutive attacks throughout the race, led by Lindsay Goldman, Starla Teddergreen and Liza Rachetto on the back side of the course.
“We love to be aggressive; we love crits,” Goldman said. “This is our favorite day of any race, so the plan is always to go out and animate the race. We don’t really have a lot of fun sitting in, and it doesn’t make for very interesting spectating, so our goal was to be aggressive from the beginning. We had a few plans around that to make certain that our attacks were tactical and played to our strengths, and really did the best we could to make the most of the energy that we were expending.”
Their efforts put teammate Leigh Ann Ganzar, the current U.S. National Crit Champion on the podium in third behind Canadian Maggie Coles-Lyster (Canadian National Team).
Meanwhile, Dygert Owen’s team covered those attacks to give her every opportunity to pick up time bonuses. Leading up to the crit, Dygert Owen had gained time during intermediate sprints on Stage 1 and Stage 2, landing her in the Sprint Leader’s jersey. She then won Friday’s time trial with a blazing finish that dug minutes into most of the field and helped her leapfrog from fifth to second place, down just 14 seconds on GC.
The math
Up for grabs in the crit were a maximum of 19 seconds via three intermediate sprints and a finish-line bonus. Each intermediate sprint included time bonuses of three seconds for the winner, two seconds for second place and one second for third place. On the finish line, a maximum gain of 10 seconds was possible for the winner.
Dygert Owen was on a mission — and she swept the sprints for maximum time, adding up to nine seconds. Each time, Chapman softened the blow by picking up second-place time bonuses for a total of six seconds.
But Dygert Owen’s final knife came at the finish line. She outsprinted the entire field by two seconds in addition to picking up the 10-second bonus. Dygert Owen gained a total of 21 seconds at the crit to Chapman’s six, which put Dygert Owen ahead in GC by one second.
“We definitely went into it with a couple plans of knowing, say this happens, then we’ll back off,” Dygert Owen said. “Like I said earlier, it wasn’t a super big deal if we didn’t get the jersey today. It ended up working out. We have a super strong team and it just never came to that point ... just super proud of the girls.”
Chapman, although frustrated by losing the leader’s jersey, said the course and competition was fun.
“It was really fun trying to go to the line with Chloe on all those intermediate sprints — I’m not going to lie — I didn’t back myself in a sprint against her,” Chapman said. “Unfortunately for myself, I felt that I hesitated in the final a bit and should have played to my strengths more, but yeah we’re absolutely ready to fight for it tomorrow. Win the race.”
A monster awaits
Now in a virtual dead heat for GC and 5,610 feet of elevation gain ahead of them Sunday in the Gila Monster Road Race presented by SkyWest Media, Sho-Air TWENTY20 and Team TIBCO-Silicon Valley Bank will prepare for an all-out fight for the leader’s jersey up the infamous climbs north of Silver City. Two sprint bonuses are available, too.
Although all eyes will be on Dygert Owen and Chapman, this field of heavy hitters isn’t going to sit idly by when the mountains await. Dygert Owen’s teammate, Canadian Jasmin Duehring, is sitting in third place with a one-minute and 14-second deficit. Edwige Pitel (Femme Équipe p/b Swisse Wellness), of France, is one minute and 53 seconds back, and former U.S. National Hill Climb Champion Krista Doebel-Hickok (Rally UHC Cycling) is in fifth, down two minutes and 58 seconds.
Dygert Owen pointed out that her team, Sho-Air TWENTY20, has five riders in the top 15 on GC.
“We have a few girls right up there on our team, so anything can happen, and we have a few cards to play so it’s not just about me,” Dygert Owen said. “We’ve got [Jasmin] up there, Emma [Grant], and everything, so we’re just going to really work hard to maintain that red jersey even if it switches throughout the team.”
In the last four years, the Gila Monster stage winner has crossed the finish line an average of 26 seconds ahead of the second-place finisher on the stage. In two of those years, Olympian and multi-time Tour of the Gila GC winner Mara Abbott was the victor.
Gila Monster stage time differences, first and second place
2018: Diana Carolina Penuela Martinez beat Katie Hall by 40 seconds
2017: Katie Hall beat Tayler Wiles by 6 seconds
2016: Mara Abbott beat Scotti Lechuga by 21 seconds
2015: Mara Abbott beat Katie Hall by 37 seconds
UCI Women
General Classification
- Chloé Dygert Owen (Sho-Air TWENTY20)
- Brodie Chapman (Team TIBCO-Silicon Valley Bank) - 1 second back
- Jasmin Duehring (Sho-Air TWENTY20) - 1:14 back
Sprint Leader
- Chloé Dygert Owen (Sho-Air TWENTY20)
- Leigh Ann Ganzar (Hagens Berman | Supermint)
- Heidi Franz (Rally UHC Cycling)
Queen of the Mountains
- Brodie Chapman (Team TIBCO-Silicon Valley Bank)
- Edwige Pitel (Femme Équipe p/b Swisse Wellness)
- Krista Doebel-Hickok (Rally UHC Cycling)
Best Young Rider
- Chloé Dygert Owen (Sho-Air TWENTY20)
- Heidi Franz (Rally UHC Cycling)
- Alice Cobb (Team TIBCO-Silicon Valley Bank)
Team Classification
- Sho-Air TWENTY20
- Team TIBCO-Silicon Valley Bank
- Rally UHC Cycling
Young wins Tour of the Gila Stage 4 crit; puts exclamation point on team’s efforts
Elevate-KHS Pro Cycling put an exclamation point on their domination of Tour of the Gila so far by sending Eric Young across the line to victory in Saturday’s Stage 4 Downtown Silver City Criterium.
The race finished in a bunch sprint, leaving general classification results unchanged and Canadian James Piccoli of Elevate-KHS in the leader’s jersey, ahead of Spaniard Oscar Miguel Sevilla Rivera (Team Medellín).
“Our main priority was James in the leader’s jersey, so we just wanted to keep it all close together, not necessarily together, but close enough so that we could get tomorrow with the same results, and then we followed a few other teams, specifically, and that ended up just neutralizing everything,” Young said.
With about 10 laps to go, Young’s team prepared for a sprint by controlling the front of the field.
“We knew that Floyd’s [Pro Cycling] was going to come over us in the last couple laps,” Young said. “So me and Alfredo, our other sprinter, we were ready for that and got in there and were on them for the last two laps.”
Young, who has won the crit at Tour of the Gila before, said his team took note from Stage 2 that Floyd’s Pro Cycling has a strong last kilometer leadout.
“I knew if we just let them go, they’ll have a good chance of winning, so I battled [Travis McCabe (Floyd’s Pro Cycling)] for the last corner, won that, and was able to hold on to the end, and Alfredo was also there,” Young said. “If I had faltered, he could have been there and won, so it was a good team effort. Our guys rode awesome, super hard, and we’re really excited for tomorrow, to win the overall for James.”
McCabe’s teammate, Canadian Nickolas Zukowsky, said that McCabe’s wheel nearly washed out in the final turn, but he was able to save it and hit the line for second place, followed by Mexican Jose Alfredo Rodriguez Victoria (Elevate-KHS Pro Cycling) in third.
Within the race, McCabe picked up maximum points on one of the intermediate sprints and gained big points by finishing second to put him only two points down from Michael Hernandez (Aevolo) in the Sprint Leader competition. Making an appearance in every intermediate sprint on the day was ever-present Canadian Travis Samuel (DCBank Pro Cycling), who is in fourth place and one point down from Zukowsky.
“I think it’s going to be close either way between Travis [McCabe] and I, so it’s kind of going to be a gold mine tomorrow,” Hernandez said. “Travis Samuel is a really strong time trialist and we were in the break together the first day. He took the first sprint, I took the second, so he got the jersey the first day and the second day I was able to get some points by the sprints, and McCabe is just a good sprinter, so he’s going to win the finish points, so I’m just trying to get him wherever I can.”
Two bonus sprints will be up for grabs during Sunday’s Gila Monster stage.
Team Medellín also sent riders on the attack Saturday, perhaps sending a reminder that their team is ready to put up a fight Sunday on behalf of Sevilla Rivera. With 9,131 feet of climbing waiting for them north of Silver City, the Colombian- based team will have plenty of opportunities to steal the lead from Piccoli.
“We live in Colombia, and we like mountains, but we have a lot of respect for all of the riders,” Sevilla Rivera said. “Piccoli has a really strong team, and they are going to work hard to defend it well. We hope for good legs and to climb fast.”
Although the main event will be between Piccoli and Sevilla Rivera, plenty of other riders will be looking to move up or even win GC depending on how the 100.6-mile race shakes out. Zukowsky is looking at a minute and 14-second deficit in third place. Canadian Adam Roberge (Elevate-KHS Pro Cycling), currently in fourth, is one minute and 22 seconds down on GC. Alex Hoehn (Aevolo) is one minute and 48 seconds back.
“This has been an awesome week for us, every stage we’ve won, placed, defended, or just done an amazing job,” Piccoli said. “I’m super proud of this team. We’ve really showed that we’re here at the Tour of the Gila to win, and to race our bikes, and we have a great time together.”
Piccoli said the Gila Monster is among the toughest days in American bike racing.
“I really think we have the team to defend, and that will be our goal,” Piccoli said. “And 46 seconds is a decent chunk of time, and that’s just on one guy and further back the gaps just get bigger and bigger, so I’ll have the guys I need to watch and if anything goes sideways I can always ride, but 46 seconds is a lot. Unless something goes wrong, I think we should be able to pull it off. We have a lot of cards to play, we have strong guys, and the team’s in a really great position.”
In the last three years, the Gila Monster stage winner has crossed the finish line an average of less than two seconds ahead of the second-place finisher on the stage.
Gila Monster stage time differences, first and second place
2018: Gavin Mannion beats Robert Britton by 1 second
2017: Jhonn Navaez Prado beats Serghei Tvetcov by less than 1 second
2016: Daniel Jaramillo beats Janier Acevedo by 3 seconds
UCI Men
General Classification
- James Piccoli (Elevate-KHS Pro Cycling)
- Oscar Miguel Sevilla Rivera (Team Medellín) - 46 seconds back
- Nickolas Zukowsky (Floyd’s Pro Cycling) - 1:14 back
Sprint Leader
- Michael Hernandez (Aevolo)
- Travis McCabe (Floyd’s Pro Cycling)
- Nickolas Zukowsky (Floyd’s Pro Cycling)
King of the Mountains
- James Piccoli (Elevate-KHS Pro Cycling)
- Christhian Montoya Giraldo (Team Medellín)
- Oscar Miguel Sevilla Rivera (Team Medellín)
Best Young Rider
- Nickolas Zukowsky (Floyd’s Pro Cycling)
- Adam Roberge (Elevate-KHS Pro Cycling)
- Alex Hoehn (Aevolo)
Team Classification
- Elevate-KHS Pro Cycling
- Aevolo
- 303 Project
Story by Sarah Muench and Cherry Niel, Clipped In