Danielson Solos to USA Pro Challenge Stage Three Win

Garmin-Sharp’s Tom Danielson put in an epic effort to hold off the entire field to win Stage Three of the USA Pro ChallengeDanielson bridged to an 18-rider breakaway on the Cat 1 climb up the 12,102-foot Cottonwood Pass, pushed the pace in the breakaway over the 12,060 Independence Pass until he dropped every other rider, and time-trialed to the finish line to win by a mere two seconds ahead of the charging peloton.

Danielson needed 13 seconds to take the yellow jersey away from BMC’s Tejay Van Garderen, who led the chase to catch the Garmin rider.

In the end Van Garderen’s effort was insufficient; Garmin’s Christian Vande Velde finished just a few places ahead of the BMC rider, and captured yellow. Vande Velde is the third rider to wear the jersey in three stages.

Stage Four is another tough stage, heading back over Independence pass and ending with a mountaintop finish. Garmin has attacked furiously in every stage so far; defending yellow might be beyond them.

It seems likely the jersey might pass to yet another rider and team tomorrow.

For Danielson, this was his first win since 2009, and his first stage race win since 2006—he had won hill climbs and team time trial events, but never a serious race stage. The win is all the sweeter because he made a similar titanic effort in Stage One, only to be caught three miles from the finish.

He was nearly caught this time; he told NBC Sports of looking back and seeing the peloton right on his heels with a few hundred meters to go, “That was just nasty.

“Going over the top with like two minutes—I don’t know what it was—I was like, ‘Okay, this is going to be difficult.’

“I was hoping for a tailwind; I was like, ‘Please, tailwind,’ and it was a headwind. I’m like 61 kilos, headwind, by myself.

“I was hoping for rain, I was like, “Thunderstorm, hail, something, please!’ and just a big headwind, so I had to really grit it out.

“I had to think of my wife Stephanie, I had to think of my baby Steve D, I had to think of Stella, I had to think of everyone out there.

“I was just like, ‘I’m going to win this race.’ I haven’t won a race properly since 2005, Tour of Georgia on top of Brasstown Bald or 2006 [Tour of Austria]. I was Like ‘I’m going to win this thing,’ and I’m proud.”

Whittling Down a Big Break

The day started with the usual flurry of attacks and an 18-rder group escaping half-an-hour into the stage: Nathan Haas and David Zabriskie (Garmin-Sharp,) Valerio Agnoli (Liquigas,) Evgeny Petrov and Fabio Aru (Astana,) Arkimedes Arguelyes (RusVelo,) Jeffry Louder (United Healthcare,) Kiel Reijnen and Javier Megias (Team Type 1,) Caleb Fairly (Spidertech,) Matthias Friedemann and Pengda Jiao (Champion Ststems,) Frank Pipp (Bissel,) Jesse Anthony and Michael Friedman (Optum,) Matt Cooke and Serghei Tvetcov (Exergy,) and Jorge Castiblanco (EPM-Une) opened a gap of 4:30 by the bottom of Cottonwood pass.

The gap started shrinking as the dirt-road climb progressed, when it was down to about 1:20 Danielson set out to bridge to the breakaway. He reached the break with 88.5 miles left in the stage, while riders started slipping back past him, unable to keep the pace on the long incline.

Danielson was second of only five riders in the break at the crest of the climb; Michael Friedman caught back up on the descent.

These six stayed together for another 30 miles; then Freidman and Aru dropped off. Zabriskie and Lauder made it to the start of the climb and they too cracked—Zabriskie, who was almost too sick to continue in Stage One put in yet another huge ride in Stage Three, killing himself to wear out the competition for his teammate.

Danielson didn’t waste his teammate’ sacrifice; he kept the pace high and eventually cracked the one remaining rival, Francisco Colorado, a few kilometers before the peak of Independence Pass.

Danielson crested the climb with a 2:15 advantage on the peloton, where BMC had been pushing hard to catch him. Race leader Tejay Van Garderen had used up every teammate and was now leading the chase himself, trying to protect his yellow jersey. 

As the gap shrank and the finish line approached, other teams helped with the chase, sensing a chance at the stage win. Danielson pushed on, slowing every moment. At 3.5 miles the gap was 30 second; at 1.4 miles it was 15. The peloton was right behind him under the one-kilometer banner; the riders could see their prey and were pushing, while Danielson was trying to dredge up energy from somewhere to stay ahead.

Danielson survived by two seconds; had the race been 100 feet longer, Astana’s Damiano Caruso would have won. The Italian rider could be seen snarling in anger; his huge effort to win was foiled by such a small margin.

Actually, it was not a small margin, because Tom Danielson’s effort was huge. In this one stage he outworked literally every single rider in the race. He rode until they had the others couldn’t keep up, and he kept going. The final margin of victory was tiny, but his exertion was many times greater than anyone else’s.

After crashing repeatedly and having to quit the Tour de France, Tom Danielson decided to get in great shape for the USA Pro Challenge to get some retribution. He has succeeded overwhelmingly, despite the two-second margin or not winning yellow..