Sergio Luis Henao Montoya wins opening stage of Tour of Utah 2011 - Cycling News
Gobernacion De Antioquia-Indeportes Antio team’s Sergio Henao won the prologue stage and grabbed the yellow jersey in Tour of Utah 2011 in Park City on Tuesday, August 9.
The 23-year-old Colombian cyclist finished the 2 kilometres monster uphill in 4 minutes and 5 seconds while the 2009 Tour of Utah winner Francisco Mancebo Perez of Realcyclists.com was runner-up with 2 seconds behind Colombian.
Henao was very happy after taking a leader’s jersey and said, “There are a lot of good teams here like RadioShack, Garmin, HTC and others. We are a modest team and in competition with other really good teams. We are here to do a great show for the people
and fight until the last minute every day."
The Colombian cyclist showed a brilliant performance in the stage and it is his first look on US soil. Previously, he won first and four stages and also took overall Vuelta Colombia in 2010. He also secured overall Grand Prix du Portugal and Cinturon Ciclista
a Mallorca in 2009.
Henao further added, the last course of the stage was quite difficult for the cyclists because of steepness and wind was hard to manage.
In the beginning of the stage, Danielson crossed the line but the Colombian increased his pace and managed to bring him back with the 16 cyclists still to go, including, Mancebo, David Zabriskie, Levi Leipheimer (RadioShack) and Tejay Van Garderen (HTC-Highroad).
All of them tried his best to take a lead but failed and Henao crossed the finish line first while his team-mate Oscar Sevilla Ribera finished third with difference of 7 seconds ahead of Tejay Van Garderen and Danielson.
Sevilla said, "Our team is good with strong riders. There are three of us Haeao, me and Avarero. The three of us need to stick together to control Mancbeo. If we stick together I think we can do well."
Garderen also took Best Young Rider standing with the timing of 4 minutes and 10 seconds ahead of Joshua Berry and Dale Parker.
The first stage will start in Ogden and all the riders will cover the distance of 187 kilometres.
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