Having suffered in the first mountain stage, Wilco Kelderman bounced back with a great showing in the Tour of Utah queen stage where he finished best among the race favourites. Despite regretting not having caught the early break, the Dutchman is pleased with his form for the Vuelta.

Belkin Pro Cycling TEAM's Wilco Kelderman attacked, finished six seconds behind stage winner Cadel Evans and put seven seconds into Tour of Utah leader Tom Danielson. Kelderman maintained fifth place overall at Snowbird Ski Resort and showed he is back to his best ahead of the Vuelta a España.

"I'm really happy with my form, so to get a result to confirm it is great," Kelderman said. "That climb suited me, not too steep as two days ago.

“It was a good day for me so I attacked on the last climb, I got 20 seconds, but Danielson began to come back. I tried to go for the stage win, but I came a bit too late to get Evans. It was a bit of poker that didn't pay off."

The 23-year-old Dutchman sits at two minutes behind Garmin's Tom Danielson, who took the lead two days ago. He nearly caught the 2011 Tour de France winner on the climb to Snowbird ski resort at 2367 metres.

"There were a lot of strong guys in that group up the road, so I knew it was going to be hard to catch them," Kelderman said. “The last climb we came close, I had Martijn Keizer working for me and I started to believe, but in the end, we couldn't do it."
 

Sports Director Erik Dekker said that he was impressed with the tactics of BMC Racing that led to its star Cadel Evans winning the 172.6-kilometre stage. He added that Garmin nearly lost Danielson's lead by not reacting soon enough.

"It was a crazy day with four BMC riders in the move with Cadel," Dekker said. "Garmin managed well even if the team was on the limit. We didn't help Garmin because Wilco wasn't at 100% at first, but given what we saw afterwards, maybe we could've done it differently!"

Dekker pointed out that the only bad moment was when Belkin's Martijn Tusveld abandoned the race with stomach problems.
 

The race finishes tomorrow with a 125.5-kilometre stage around Park City, but without a summit finish, it will be hard to dethrone Danielson. "Our goal would be a stage win," Dekker said. Kelderman added, "There's a small descent to the finish, so you could attack and hold it. I hope to be as good as I was today."