Tom Danielson sealed his second consecutive win in the Tour of Utah when he matched his rivals pedalstroke for pedalstroke in the final stage of the Tour of Utah. Having been under a lot more pressure and being supported by a younger team, he described his second win as completelt different from the first one.
Tom Danielson went into the Tour of Utah as the defending champion but with an injury-plagued spring season in his legs, there was lot of uncertainty about his ability to defend his title. However, he quickly put those doubts to rest when he crushed the opposition in the first mountain stage on Powder Mountain.
Since then he rode a defensive race where he used his team to control a dangerous attack by Cadel Evans in the queen stage before following his rivals in yesterday's final hard stage of the race. That was enough to secure a comfortable overall victory ahead of Chris Horner and Winner Anacona.
Danielson admitted that he had felt under a lot of pressure to perform.
“I knew I had good form coming in,” Danielson said. It's really special to come across the line with so many fans (in Park City). So much work goes into it. All of us athletes have been through so much, so when it all comes together like it did this week, we all understand what it means. It is special.
“It’s magic. You come down that straight with all the fans. I wanted to start crying because there’s so much work put into it.
“The biggest thing I was worried about was dropping a chain or having a bike mechanical like yesterday. So I was leaving a lot in the tank so I could deal with those problems.
“It was totally different [this year]… I put my hand up to win this year. A lot harder, a lot more pressure on the team, a younger, less experienced team this year, with a lot of kinks along the way – illness, crashes and stuff like that – everybody performed above and beyond. It was the least I could do to perform well on my end.”
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