Taylor Phinney (BMC Racing) announced his return to professional cycling Monday with a podium performance during the opening stage at the Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah.
Phinney finished third after he bridged to a group of four riders on the second of two closing circuits in Logan and eventually finished third to fellow Boulder, Colorado, residents Kiel Reijnen (UnitedHealthcare) and Alex Howes (Cannondale-Garmin).
“It’s really nice to be back,” Phinney said in the post-race press conference. “I didn’t want to come back before I was at a position where I could be competitive and try to give some people a run for their money. So I’m happy.
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“It was kind of a brutal day with five hours in the wet and the cold,” he said. “I was shivering most of the time, so that took a lot of mental energy away from focusing on my knee.”
Phinney’s return after injuring his left leg more than a year ago in a nasty crash at the US pro championships caught many people off-guard, but he said earlier in the week that he wanted to keep things quiet to reduce the exterior pressure surrounding his return.
“I’ve been wanting to come back here for the last couple of months,” he said. “It was in the plans with the team. But with any recovery, it’s always up and down, and my return to racing has been more of a personal thing. I didn’t want to have too much external pressure by announcing it too early.”
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