In another scorching day at the 2012 Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah where temperatures soared north of 100 degrees on the track, Team UnitedHealthcare raced to a fifth place finish in the first ever team time trial in the Tour’s storied history. The team time trial was won by Garmin-Sharp in an impressive time of 22 minutes and 35 seconds, 30 seconds ahead of Rabobank Cycling Team, which finished in second place and 38 seconds in front of third place finisher RadioShack-Nissan-Trek. Team UnitedHealthcare finished just three seconds behind fourth place finisher, Bissell Pro Cycling, to take fifth place on the stage.  

Despite the Team’s valiant effort on the winding course at Miller Motorsports Park in Toole, Utah, Stage One winner, Rory Sutherland relinquished the yellow jersey to Garmin-Sharp’s Christian Vande Velde (USA) who led the Garmin effort. Sutherland was however able to retain the purple XO Communications Sprint Leader’s Jersey, and as the squad takes on the peloton heading into Stage Three tomorrow, he also remains in a tightly knotted race for the top spot in the General Classification in 10th place overall.

General Manager and Team Director, Mike Tamayo, commented on the team’s effort today saying, “We came into the team trial with the goal of executing against our strategy. We knew that Garmin was the team to beat as they’ve destroyed many team time trials globally and trying to match their time would be a tall order.”

“So we took time splits on Garmin and RadioShack and we focused on RadioShack time splits. If the guys felt good, we were going to go as deep as we could but Garmin just had an incredible ride. We were within 15 seconds of RadioShack and Rabobank and I’ll take that result any day for a team of our caliber. So we’re very happy with it. We’re still in the sprinter’s jersey so we’ll focus on that for now as there’s another stage tomorrow. We’ve been on the podium two days in a row and that’s a good thing,” he concluded.

The six-stage 2012 Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah continues tomorrow, Thursday, August 9, as the peloton heads into Stage Three, a 137.6km jaunt from Ogden to Salt Lake City.

TEAM UNITEDHEALTHCARE ROSTER FOR THE 2012 LARRY H. MILLER TOUR OF UTAH (August 7-12):
•    Jeff Louder (USA)
•    Philip Deignan (IRE)
•    Rory Sutherland (AUS)
•    Hilton Clarke (AUS)
•    Robert Förster (GER)
•    Jake Keough (USA)
•    Chris Jones (USA)
•    Ben Day (AUS)

Photo Courtesy Jonathan Devich, epicimages.us