Rory Sutherland wins the opening stage of the Tour of the Gila 2012
Rory Sutherland of Team UnitedHealthcare wins the opening stage of the SRAM Tour of The Gila and registered his first victory of the 2012 season.
He completed the 151.3 kilometre chase to Mogollon in a fastest time 3 hours, 45 minutes and 43 seconds and occupied the top podium spot.
Joe Dombrowski of Team Bontrager-Livestrong finished 12 seconds behind and achieved the second position.
Chad Beyer of Team Competitive Cyclist Racing fell further 2 seconds behind at the third spot while Sebastian Sales of Team Optum Pro Cycling and Chris Baldwin of Team Bissell Cycling claimed the fourth and the fifth positions.
Sutherland told Cyclingnews, "We've just had setback after setback with sickness and equipment breaks, just all these little things cascading”.
“When you are away from home and all it adds more to it. Everything is easier at home".
"We are really happy to be here at a race that has been saved by SRAM. It nearly died because of financial reasons”’
“So we are really excited to be here and to start getting victories instead of seconds and fifths".
"It's something I'm working on, so for me it's really going to be trying to maintain where I am until the last stage".
Team UnitedHealthcare is targeting the Tour of California and is finding his current form at the Tour of Gila.
Paul Mach of Team Kenda 5 Hour Energy succeeded during the first and the second sprint of the race while Adam Carr of Team Ekoi.com-Gaspesien achieved the second spot.
Rory Sutherland is now leading the stage 1 classifications while Joe Dombrowski of Team Bontrager-Livestrong is holding a second spot with a deficit of 12 seconds.
Chad Beyer of Team Competitive Cyclist Racing is holding the third position with a total deficit of 14 seconds on the race leader.
Sebastien Sales, Chris Baldwin and Marc De Maar achieved the fourth, the fifth and the sixth positions in the respective order.
Paul Mach, Adam Carr, Logan Loader and Colin Gibson are leading the sprint classifications with a total amount of 10, 6, 1 and 1 points respectively.
Team Competitive Cyclist is leading the team’s classifications with Team UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling at the second and Mexican National Team at the third position.
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