Tour of Utah: big attraction for Tour de France contenders
Tour of Utah is a professional road bicycle racing stage that is held across the mountains and terrain of the state of Utah in the United States of America. It was initially started as a local race known as Thanksgiving Point Stage Race and it was only in
2004 that the race was given the name of Tour of Utah.
The seventh Tour of Utah is scheduled to start this year from August 9 to 14 and a good number of the Tour de France contestants are queued up to show their skills at the Tour.
Previous winner of the Tour of Utah, Jeff Louder of BMC Racing said, “I think it is great that the race is now a UCI 2.1. It not only allows me to compete as a member of a Pro Team but it also makes the race a lot more legitimate.”
Race was given the UCI status in 2006 but the Tour was not held in 2007 as it failed to attract the sponsors. Tour of Utah returned in 2008 with a status of U.S. National Race and was also the part of National Racing Calendar. The race in 2008 had five stages
with a total of $75-million in prizes.
In 2009, the race had three road stages, a Criterium, a prologue and a time trial and it was only after 2010 that the Tour was added to the UCI America Tour as a UCI classification 2.1 race.
Tour of Utah will start off with the individual time trials of 2 kilometres at Park City as the short uphill prologue has been chosen to start the race. The race will start on August 9.
The first stage of the race will be on August 10 at Ogden. The 187 kilometre stage race will start at 11:00 am and will include three climbs with a flat finish at around 3:45 pm to 4:30 pm. Cyclists will go eight thousand feet above the sea level during
the first stage of the Tour.
Second stage will be between Lehi to Provo as the cyclists will have to climb 2,820 feet during the 161 kilometre stage of the Tour. Cyclists will start the second day at 11:00 am and will finish the stage around 2:45 pm to 3:30 pm and unlike stage 1 this
stage will have a hilly finish.
After a long and hilly stage 2, cyclists will have an individual time trial of 14.5 kilometres at Miller Motorsports Park on August 12. This stage will begin at 5:00 pm and will conclude in about 3 hour’s time.
Fourth stage of the Tour will be held at Salt Lake City with a total length of 131 kilometres. This is relatively a short but a difficult circuit race with a total of 11 circuits, of about 11.9 kilometres each.
Sunday, August 14 will be the final day of the race as cyclists will fight for the title and will compete across Park City to Snowbird for 161 kilometres as the mountain finish will decide the overall winner of the Tour. Cyclists will climb over 10,900 feet
at the final stage of this year’s Tour of Utah.
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