Colombia-Coldeportes 19-year-old Daniel Martinez moved up a position to 7th in the overall standings at the Tour of Utah after the American race’s queen stage, the 6th, 177 km from Salt Lake City to the uphill finish in Snowbird on Saturday August 8th. Walter Pedraza and Martinez finished 9th and 10th, 1.54 adrift, in the stage dominated by new overall leader Joe Dombrowski (Cannondale), who smashed the competition with an attack with about 10 km to go that soon left no one in his wake. 1.17 later came former yellow jersey Michael Woods (Optum), Nathnael Berhane (MTN-Qhubeka), Frank Schleck (Trek) – who was the only one to keep on Dombrowski’s pace for about a kilometer – and Chris Horner (Airgas-Safeway). At the end of the stage, Martinez also wore the jersey as best young rider. With Camilo Castiblanco finishing 13th at 2.34, Colombia-Coldeportes was also the best team on the day, taking over the teams classification lead with 3.01 on BMC.

Colombia-Coldeportes had placed a man – Carlos Mario Ramirez – in the early breakaway of 12 men, earning 5 minutes on the peloton led by Optum in the first half of the race, but whose lead plummeted once they started the first big climb of the day to the Guardsman pass. After Ramirez got dropped from the leading group,  it was Colombia-Coldeportes who emphatically took over the chasing effort, drastically reducing the lead to under 1 minute and slimming the peloton to about 35 units. At the front, two of the escapees – Joey Rosskopf (BMC) and Rob Britton (SmartStop) – reached the top of the climb in front, being rejoined by Ben King (Cannondale) on the descent.

The same trio resisted at the fore until the beginning of the last climb to Snowbird. The strong work by Cayetano Sarmiento further reduced the lead, and when it slipped under 15 seconds, Dombrowski made his acceleration, with Schleck, Woods and Squire (Hincapie) the only ones able to follow him on King’s wake at first. Soon enough, it was down to only Dombrowski and Schleck, and finally the American got clear to a solo lead. Daniel Martinez had tried to follow Dombrowski’s acceleration too, but he missed something to bridge the gap, and remained just behind in a reduced group that also included Walter Pedraza.

Later on, Horner and Berhane got back on Woods and Schleck, with Squire fading, but it was Dombrowski who had by far the fastest pace around, as he kept increasing his lead until the finishing line.

In the overall, Dombrowski now leads with 50 seconds on Woods and 1.07 on Schleck. Martinez is 7th at 1.41, with still a chance to give a final assault to the podium in tomorrow’s final stage. Walter Pedraza and Camilo Castiblanco sit just behind the top 10, 11th and 12th at 1.56 and 2.39 respectively.

On Sunday, the Tour of Utah comes to a close with the 7th stage, starting and finishing in Park City (125 km). It will be a short one, but certainly not a classic sprinter-friendly closing stage. In fact, the HC Empire Pass expects the rider just a few kilometres out of the finish, likely becoming the last springboard for those looking to unsettle the general classification.