Dombrowski Wins Stage 6, Hermans Seals 2019 Tour of Utah Overall

By Lyne Lamoureux – PARK CITY, Utah (August 18, 2019) – Belgian Ben Hermans of Israel Cycling Academy successfully fended off all challengers to earn the top prize at the 2019 Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah in front of huge crowds in Park City on Sunday. Hermans rode a masterful race to finish fourth on Stage 6 presented by Utah Sports Commission and take the Larry H. Miller Group of Companies Overall Leader title.

Photo Galleries:

• 2019 Tour of Utah Stage 6 Photo Essay by Cathy Fegan-Kim

“From the first time that I did this race in 2014, I had a good feeling with this race and I kept getting better results in the G.C.,” said Hermans, who was fourth overall in 2014 and runner-up in 2017 at the Tour of Utah. “It’s really amazing. I really enjoy it here. It’s amazing to ride for these crowds. And to be there on the podium in the yellow jersey is really, really nice.”

Stage 6 presented by Utah Sports Commission found a select group of riders battling for the overall victory on the Hors Category climb of Empire Pass, followed by the thrilling descent into Park City. Joe Dombrowski (EF Education First) attacked multiple times on Empire Pass before blasting downhill solo at speeds reaching 70 kilometers per hour and took his first victory in four years.

“I wanted to win the stage today. I know Empire. I’ve done this climb a number of times in training and obviously have done this climb quite a few times in the race,” said Dombrowski, whose last time on the top step of the podium came in 2015 at the Tour of Utah at Snowbird Resort, when he also won the G.C. title. “Eventually I decided to ease off on the climb and hopefully some guys would come back. And then, maybe it would present another opportunity to go just at the very top (of the climb), because if you have a gap on the descent, normally you can keep it to the line. And it worked out.” Dombrowski finished the 78.2-mile (125.9-kilometer) stage in a time of 3 hours and 11 minutes.

João Almeida (Hagens Berman Axeon) led the four-rider chase group across the finish line, 24 seconds behind Dombrowski for second place. Keegan Swirbul (Worthy Pro Cycling) was third and Hermans fourth.

The 15th edition of the Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah, known as “America’s Toughest Stage Race,” included 477 miles of racing and 37,882 feet of elevation gain. Over the course of seven days of hard racing, three different riders wore the Larry H. Miller Group of Companies Overall Leader’s yellow jersey. Hermans climbed into the lead on Stage 2 presented by Monster Hydro in Powder Mountain Resort and never lost time.

“I think now it’s for sure the toughest race, I did the USA Pro Cycling Challenge in the past, that race was really tough, it was over climbs of 3,600 meters of altitude but now for sure, it’s tougher than California.” Hermans noted. “It’s even the toughest race of Europe I think. It’s hard to climb at this altitude.”

The final G.C. time for Hermans was 18 hours and 46 minutes. James Piccoli (Elevate – KHS Pro Cycling), who won the Prologue, was fifth on Stage 6 and finished second in the G.C. With the stage win, Dombrowski moved to third overall. Placing fourth overall was Almeida, who claimed the WCF Insurance Best Young Rider jersey. Swirbul jumped up three spots to finish eighth overall.

“It feels really good. My main goal was the G.C. The jersey is really good, I’m really happy to have it, it means something,” Almeida said.

“I think the heat, the altitude, the short(er) stages, everything adds up to making it one of the toughest races in the U.S. It’s full gas every day. There’s no respite, there are no days that are easy,” Travis McCabe (Worthy Pro Cycling) said after claiming his third consecutive Utah Sports Commission Sprint jersey.

“We really wanted to come out, showcase Worthy Brewing, showcase how strong of a domestic team we have, and also just get the results. Keegan (finishing) third today, me taking the sprint jersey, Serghei (Tvetcov) third in the Prologue and me second in the Salt Lake City stage, I think we’ve showed the depth that we have on a smaller team. It feels great. I love Utah, it’s one of my favorite races all year long, and proud to have the Utah Sports Commission Sprint jersey again,” McCabe added.

The start of Stage 6 presented by Utah Sports Commission featured a group of 23 riders who broke away from the 101-rider peloton at the first of two Utah Sports Commission Sprint lines in Kamas. Cooperation was not the best in such a big group with only a handful of riders working at the front.

The break included the Neri Sottoli-Selle Italia-KTM trio of Dayer Quintana, Umberto Marengo, and Edoardo Zardini, Worthy trio of Serghei Tvetcov, Alec Cowan and Noah Granigan, Aevolo trio of Gabriel Rojas (CRC), Cade Bickmore and Scott McGill and Ben Wolfe (USA), Arapahoe-Hincapie trio of Ben Wolfe, Brendan Rhim and Tanner Putt, Rally UHC’s Gavin Mannion and Ty Magner and 303 Project’s Cullen Easter and Tony Baca. Joining the move were also Giovanni Lonardi (NIPPO-Vini Fantini-Faizanè), Jacopo Mosca (Trek-Segafredo), Pablo Alarcón (Canel’s-Specialized), Edwin Ávila (Israel Cycling Academy), Matt Zimmer (DC Bank Pro Cycling), and Jimmy Whelan (EF Education First).

The first major climb of the day, the Cat 2 KOM climb up Wolf Creek Ranches dropped many riders from the break though most were able to catch back on. Meanwhile behind, Kevin Vermaerke (Hagens Berman Axeon) closed a 2-minute gap to join up with the break on the descent.

Kept on a short leash by Israel Cycling Academy, the escapees were reeled back in on the bottom of Empire Pass, the second Utah Office of Tourism King of the Mountain climb before the battle for stage and G.C. podium places.

“Everybody did their job this week, even Edwin Avila our sprinter was pulling for, I think, 2 or 3 kilometers on the last climb. I’m really impressed also by Hamish Schreurs on how he controlled the race. I only can be happy with the team’s work. Also the previous races, they did really good work for me. It’s really nice to finish it off with a victory and not a third or a fourth place.” Hermans said of his team’s efforts in Utah.

With 20 kilometers to go, Lachlan Morton (EF Education First) attacked the dwindling peloton down to around 25 riders. Once he was reeled in, Dombrowski countered immediately only to be re-absorbed by a select group which included Hermans and Piccoli. Dombrowski went again and Piccoli tried to drop Hermans forcing the three riders together. Dombrowski settled in a the front, pushing the pace on the punishing climb.

“It’s a different climb,” Dombrowski said of Empire Pass, “in that it’s one that typically the selection can happen at the bottom because it’s consistently steep. But once you get to the second half of the climb, it rolls, there are even some downhills. So if you’re with the group, it’s more difficult to get away. So I tried at the bottom, Ben and James were with me. They didn’t have any real obligations or reasons to work with me because I was a couple of minutes back on G.C. We were racing different races I suppose.”

Behind them, a chase group formed with Almeida, Rally UHC’s Rob Britton and Kyle Murphy and Lawson Craddock (EF Education First). Almeida put in two major surges to first drop Britton and Murphy, then Craddock.

With 5 km to the top of the KOM, Almeida caught and went straight to the front of the lead trio of Dombrowski, Hermans and Piccoli. The young Portuguese rider put in another acceleration which put Piccoli in trouble for the first time. One kilometer later, Almeida, Dombrowski and Hermans were together at the front while Swirbul caught and passed a dropped Piccoli. Not long afterm Swirbul caught the lead trio Behind them, Peter Stetina waited for his Trek-Segafredo team mate Niklas Eg to try to pace him up the mountain to salvage his top three G.C. placings.

With 2 km to top the of the KOM, Dombrowski made his move, quickly getting a gap. he had 20 seconds by the time he crested Empire Pass. Not taking any chances, Hermans went to the front of the group on the fast descent into town. With one kilometer to go, Piccoli caught back onto the Hermans, Swirbul and Almeida group to battle it out for stage placings.

Dombrowski was all in for the stage win and not really thinking of his chance to move up on G.C. “If you win the stage then obviously there’s a chance you can move up,” he said. “But I think I would prefer to race to win a stage than think about the G.C. Whether I’m 2, 3, 4, 6… I would prefer to try and win. I wouldn’t say that I was thinking about that too much.”

Hayden McCormick (Team BridgeLane) defended the Utah Office of Tourism King of the Mountain Leader jersey. Racing aggressively throughout the seven days of racing,

“Obviously that was the goal today,” McCormick stated. “It was a bit fast today to my liking today. We knew that we had to watch Alex Howes going into the break, he was the main threat. That was sort of it. I was pretty happy once the break went because I’m feeling a bit sore.”

Piccoli was awarded the Larry H. Miller Dealerships Most Aggressive Rider jersey. Fans selected Tony Baca (303 Project )as the America First Credit Union Fan Favorite in the Overall Fan Favorite category. EF Education First finished as the best overall team.

All the riders agreed that the decision to shorten the stages for this year’s edition of the Larry H Miller Tour of Utah was the right decision.

“For us, we’re not in the heat as much. Everyone has a little bit fresher legs, and also I don’t think it changes the results. No matter what, you’re going to see Ben win. It was on Powder Mountain, Powder Mountain decided everything and then after that, it added another element into how the tactics played out, and what racing was like. So it made it more aggressive,” McCabe noted. “I think it made it more exciting for the fans and then also it made more exciting for the riders too because you have to change up tactics quite a bit when it’s 20 miles shorter than what you’re used it. But for sure, it made it harder.”

“Not just here, but bike racing in general, we should do a little bit shorter stages in general,” Dombrowski agreed. “Bike racing has a script, the breakaway goes away, someone chases the breakaway and if it’s a stage that someone is pretty confident that they can win then they’re going to bring the breakaway back and they’re going to race for the win. And there is this period in between where we’re riding around and the longer the stage, the longer the amount of time that we’re just riding around. It’s not really interesting. In the Tour de France, that’s when they start showing helicopter shots of castles and whatever else, so I think actually it’s a good move. I think you see other races doing that.”

Dombrowski continued, “From my perspective, in this race, there wasn’t much time where we were sort of noodling which I think is boring, I don’t think it’s particularly exciting for the people watching. In the end, I don’t think it really changes the result, other than there are certain times when I think you need a big day. In general, I think it that’s a really good way to go, I think this race was pretty exciting. Lots of good, different finishes that suited different guys and I think it was pretty well put together.”

“It was a great week of racing. We are so proud of this state and we wanted to showcase it to the world. Thank you to the Miller family, for our nine host communities, for the over 50 corporate partners that step up to make this race happen, and most importantly, to the volunteers that step up and really contribute to pull this thing off,” said Tour of Utah Managing Director John Kimball. “This is our 15th year. The Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah is proud to say that we’re going to be back next year. We look forward to working with the UCI in getting those dates this fall and we’re excited to see where we are going to go next year.”

RESULTS AND STANDINGS

 Stage 6 presented by Utah Sports Commission– Top 10

1. DOMBROWSKI Joseph Lloyd (USA) EF EDUCATION FIRST 3:11:09
2. ALMEIDA João (POR) HAGENS BERMAN AXEON 3:11:33 +0:00:24
3. SWIRBUL Keegan (USA) WORTHY PRO CYCLING 3:11:35 +0:00:26
4. HERMANS Ben (BEL) ISRAEL CYCLING ACADEMY 3:11:35 +0:00:26
5. PICCOLI James (CAN) ELEVATE-KHS PRO CYCLING 3:11:39 +0:00:30
6. CRADDOCK Lawson (USA) EF EDUCATION FIRST 3:12:33 +0:01:24
7. BADILATTI Matteo (SUI) ISRAEL CYCLING ACADEMY 3:12:48 +0:01:39
8. MURPHY Kyle (USA) RALLY UHC CYCLING 3:13:07 +0:01:58
9. BRITTON Robert (CAN) RALLY UHC CYCLING 3:13:15 +0:02:06
10. 10.MORTON Lachlan (AUS) EF EDUCATION FIRST 3:13:20 +0:02:11

FINAL GENERAL CLASSIFICATION

1. HERMANS Ben (BEL) ISRAEL CYCLING ACADEMY 18:46:09
2. PICCOLI James (CAN) ELEVATE-KHS PRO CYCLING 18:46:59 +0:00:50
3. DOMBROWSKI Joseph Lloyd (USA) EF EDUCATION FIRST 18:47:41 +0:01:32
4. ALMEIDA João (POR) HAGENS BERMAN AXEON 18:48:35 +0:02:26
5. EG Niklas (DEN) TREK-SEGAFREDO 18:49:06 +0:02:57
6. MURPHY Kyle (USA) RALLY UHC CYCLING 18:49:29 +0:03:20
7. CRADDOCK Lawson (USA) EF EDUCATION FIRST 18:50:17 +0:04:08
8. SWIRBUL Keegan (USA) WORTHY PRO CYCLING 18:50:49 +0:04:40
9. STETINA Peter (USA) TREK-SEGAFREDO 18:51:31 +0:05:22
10. BADILATTI Matteo (SUI) ISRAEL CYCLING ACADEMY 18:51:37 +0:05:28

AWARD JERSEYS

• Larry H. Miller Group of Companies Overall leader – Ben Hermans (BEL) of Israel Cycling Academy
• Utah Sports Commission Sprint leader – Travis McCabe (USA) of Worthy Pro Cycling
• Utah Office of Tourism King of the Mountain – Hayden McCormick (NZL) of Team BridgeLane
• WCF Insurance Best Young Rider – João Almeida (POR) of Hagens Berman Axeon
• Larry H. Miller Dealerships Most Aggressive Rider –  James Piccoli (CAN) of Elevate – KHS Pro Cycling
• America First Credit Union Fan Favorite – Tony Baca (MEX) of 303 Project

FULL RESULTS
2019 Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah Stage 6 – Park City – presented by Utah Sports Commission