Greg Van Avermaet (BMC) made a gutsy move with 700m to go in the first stage of the Tour of Utah to ride himself into the first yellow jersey of the mountainous American stage race which kicked off yesterday. Holding off a fast-charging bunch on the finishing stretch, the Belgian took his fourth win in a little more than two weeks as he narrowly denied sprinters Michael Matthews (Orica-GreenEdge) and Tyler Magner (Hincapie Sportswear Deveopment) the win.

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.

Today 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.

Michael Matthews finished off the hard work of his Orica-GreenEdge team by holding off Tyler Magner in the bunch sprint for 2nd but the missed opportunity was certainly not what he had hoped for. Instead, it was Van Avermaet who stepped onto the podium to put on the first leader's jersey of the race.

Van Avermaet faces a tough defence of his lead when the race continues later today with the 2nd stage. The tough 210km route sends the riders up the Boulder Mountain just 38,1km from the line and we should get the first glimpses of who may go on to win the race overall.

A tough start

The Tour of Utah kicked off in brutal fashion as the road kicked upwards immediately after the start of the 180km first stage. That short climb was followed by a long descent and a flat stretch before a long, gradual climb promised to split things up a bit. The final 40km consisted of a fast downhill and three laps on a flat finishing circuit in Cedar City and the stage was expected to be one of the few for the sprinters in the mountainous race.

As the peloton rolled up the first climb, there was no big interest in attacking and so nobody tried to respond when Michael Torckler (Bissell) and Chris Jones (UnitedHealthCare) finally to up the gauntlet and accelerated off the front. Those two riders managed to build up a solid gap and while the peloton was certainly not riding full gas, the pace was still fast enough to put riders into difficulty on the steep slopes.

A big gap

As the riders rolled down the long descent, no team showed any interest in initiating a chase and so the gap ballooned to more than 10 minutes. With few sprinters present at the mountainous race, Michael Matthews stood out as one of the main favourites and he finally asked his teammates to up the pace, young Damian Howson doing most of the early work.

The Australian team got assistance from a couple of Jamis riders who were intent on setting up a sprint win for Juan Jose Haedo. Those two teams started to gradually bring down the gap while up ahead Torckler and Jones shared the different sprint primes with the former going first over the top of the climbs and the latter winning the intermediate sprints. Behind, Max Jenkins (5-Hour Energy) and Tiago Machado (Radioshack) made sure to each pick up one bonus second in the intermediate sprints while Jesse Anthony (Optum) kicked off his own KOM campaign by picking up a few points.

Orica-GreenEdge put down the hammer

As the front duo crested the summit of the final climb, their gap had come down to less than 2 minutes as Orica-GreenEdge had put down the hammer on the final part of the ascent, thus forcing some riders to fall off the pace. Howson and his teammate Sam Bewley sped down the descent while the BMC team had organized their troops just behind.

Jones and Torckler were still ahead when they passed the finish line to start the first of the three laps on the finishing circuit but as the peloton was breathing down their necks, Jones decided to go off on his own. Torckler fell back into the peloton and a little later BMC had also reeled in Jones as the American team had now taken control of the peloton.

Voigt on the offensive

That was the signal for Jens Voigt (Radioshack) and Michael Schär (BMC) to attack and those two riders managed to stay clear for much of the penultimate lap. However, 5-Hour Energy had now organized a chase and they brought back the 2 ProTeam riders.

5-Hour Energy remained in control as the peloton started the final lap but a little later Hincapie Sportswear took over, the American team hoping to see Magner mix it up with the big sprinters.  BMC was the next team to take the lead but as the peloton passed the flamme rouge, the Optum team was seen at the head of the main group as they prepared the sprint for Eric Young.

Van Avermaet makes his move

That was when Van Avermaet decided to anticipate the sprint and as most of the teams had now run out of domestiques, the Belgian got a big gap. Optum did their best to bring him back but had no success and so Van Avermaet could take his fourth win in just a few weeks.

Matthews beat Magner in the sprint for second but paid the price for his team's hard work in the first part of the stage as he lacked the support to bring back Van Avermaet on the finishing straight. Young finished 4th while Kiel Reijnen (UnitedHealthCare) was 5th.

Result:

1. Greg Van Avermaet 4.11.00

2. Michael Matthews

3. Tyler Magner

4. Eric Young

5. Kiel Reijnen

6. Joe Lewis

7. Jasper Stuyven

8. Chris Baldwin

9. Fred Rodriguez

10. Jeff Louder

General classification:

1. Greg Van Avermaet 4.10.50

2. Michael Matthews +0.04

3. Chris Jones

4. Tyler Magner +0.06

5. Max Jenkins +0.09

6. Tiago Machado

7. Eric Young +0.10

8. Kiel Reijnen

9. Joe Lewis

10. Jasper Stuyven

Points classification:

1. Greg Van Avermaet

2. Michael Matthews

3. Chris Jones

4. Tyler Magner

5. Eric Young

Mountains classification:

1. Michael Torckler 10

2. Chris Jones 8

3. Jesse Anthony 5

4. Michael Hepburn 4

5. Tyler Wren 2

Youth classification:

1. Tyler Magner 4.10.56

2. Jasper Stuyven +0.04

3. Michel Koch

4. Gavin Mannion

5. Lachlan Morton

Team classification:

1. Team Optum 12.33.00

2. Hincapie Sportswear

3. Cannondale

4. Champion System

5. UnitedHealthCare