It was a good day to be wearing orange and black in Silver City, New Mexico, as Optum-Kelly Benefit Strategies won both the men’s and women’s UCI races at the Tour of the Gila stage 2 with Eric Young and Annie Ewart on Thursday.
The 76.2-mile men’s race featured a two-man breakaway with Robin Carpenter (Hincapie Racing) and Danny Summerhill (UnitedHealthcare). After a flurry of attacks in the final 15 miles of racing, the escape was caught.
In the bunch sprint, Young proved fastest, dispatching Travis McCabe (Team SmartStop), who was second, and Summerhill’s teammate, Kiel Reijnen, who took third.
Rafael Montiel (Orgullo Antioqueno) kept the overall lead, which he claimed in Wednesday’s Mogollon road race.
Breakaway wins a nail-biter in women’s race
While the two-rider break couldn’t stay away in the men’s race, the 75-mile women’s stage was a different story.
Despite suffering a crash earlier in the day, Ewart went on the attack, along with Olivia Dillon (Visit Dallas). At one point, their gap went north of seven minutes, but the Amy D. Foundation composite team soon went to the front to drive the pace on behalf of race leader Mara Abbott.
The break’s advantage began to fall precipitously, and it looked as if they might be caught before the line, but the intrepid duo held on to the very end. Ewart won the two-up sprint, and Dillon had to settle for second place.
Behind, Alison Jackson (Twenty16-Sho-Air) rounded out the podium in third.
Abbott keeps the overall lead going into Friday’s stage, a 16.15-mile individual time trial for both men and women.
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