Greg Van Avermaet continued his and his BMC team's recent run of success when he won the first stage of the Tour of Utah yesterday. Having seen the downhill finish one day earlier, he knew he had no chance against the sprinters in a bunch kick and so decided to make a gutsy and ultimately successful move 700m from the line.

BMC had a tough Tour de France where nothing went as the ambitious team had hoped for. However, things have completely turned around in recent weeks and yesterday Greg Van Avermaet continued the amazing run of success with a win in the first stage of the Tour of Utah.

Van Avermaet was the rider who got the ball rolling when he won the third stage of the Tour de Wallonie and kept things going with another victory and the overall win two days later. Thor Hushovd took two stage victories in last week's Tour of Poland and those were only separated by a win from teammate Taylor Phinney.

Yesterday Van Avermaet made a gutsy move to continue that amazing success story when he attacked from a fast-moving bunch just 700m from the line. Despite the best efforts from the sprint teams, nobody was able to catch the in-form Belgian who has finally started to pick up some wins after a long victory drought.

Van Avermaet is a fast guy but no real sprinter and when he saw the finishing straight, he knew he would have no chance to beat a rider like Michael Matthews (Orica-GreenEdge) in a head-to-head battle. Instead, he and his team decided to use a different tactic.

"I saw the finish yesterday and it wasn't such a great finish for me because it was downhill," Van Avermaet said. "I thought guys like Matthews could beat me. So I tried to do it differently and went in the last kilometer. It was already hard and I attacked. I came into the last corner with a gap and then I was just pedaling to finish and hoping they wouldn't come over. I'm happy that I won."

Spectators may have wondered whether the attack was the result of a last-minute decision or a pre-race tactic. Van Avermaet confirmed that his team had decided to not do any chase work as they had limited chances and instead play their cards with a late move.

"You can have the plan, but sometimes it's hard to work out," he said. "But the team was riding well on the circuits and it worked out in the last kilometer."

Sports director Jackson Stewart knew that Van Avermaet has the characteristics to finish off a move like yesterday's.

"We knew if there was a lull in the speed where he could get away, Greg can always hold an amazing amount of power for at least 800 meters," he said. "Basically, he sniffed it out and that's what he decided to do in the end."

The race continues today with a very tough 210km stage that has more than 3010m of climbing and sends the riders up the Boulder Mountain just 38,1km from the finish line. Van Avermaet has always been focused on stage wins as he is no pure climber and so he expects some of the team's other members to take over in the tougher stages like today's.

"It's going to be hard for me to take the GC (general classification)," Van Avermaet said. "We have a couple of good guys like Steve Cummings and Yannick Eijssen, who are going really good uphill. It's always good, though, to start a stage race with a victory. Hopefully, we can get some other ones."

The race - known as America's hardest - continues until Sunday. You can read more about it here.