As Durango’s Christopher Blevins predicted, Canada’s Rob Britton took over first place at the Tour of the Gila after Friday’s third stage.
Britton, a Rally Cycling team rider, took over the General Classification lead at the 32nd Tour of the Gila road cycling race in New Mexico with a total time of 8 hours, 15 minutes, 34 seconds. He has a commanding lead on U.S. rider Gavin Mannion of the UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling Team, who is 57 seconds back. Rally Cycling’s Kyle Murphy, also of the U.S., is third, 1:43 back of his teammate.
Canels Specialized rider Oscar Eduardo Sanchez of Colombia gave up his overall lead he held for two stages. He now sits fourth, 1:48 back of Britton. Stage 3 winner Serghei Tvetcov of Romania and the UnitedHealthcare team is fifth in the GC, 2:03 back.
Tvetcov won the 16.15-mile time trial Friday in 33:30. That was 25 seconds faster than Mannion and 31 seconds better than the stage’s third-place finisher, Evan Huffman of Rally Cycling. Britton did enough to jump into the GC lead by finishing fourth, 38 seconds back of Tvetcov, as Rally Cycling took third, fourth and fifth Friday behind the two UnitedHealthcare riders.
The 20-year-old Blevins rode strong a day after he claimed a win on the 75-mile second stage road race. Riding in the top sprinter’s green jersey, Blevins finished 17th on the time trial, 2:25 back of Tvetcov’s time.
Blevins lost one place in the GC standings, as he is now 16th. He is well off the time of Britton, 4:01 back.
The young Hagens Berman Axeon rider will look to stay in the green jersey. He has 18 sprint points accumulated, six ahead of Daniel Alexander Jaramillo of Colombia and the UnitedHealthCare team. Janier Alexis Acevedo sits third in the green jersey standings with 11 points. Cormac McGeough, a Fort Lewis College rider competing for the Jelly Belly team, is tied for fourth with 10 points along with Mexico’s Ignacio de Jesus Prado of Canels Specialized.
McGeough was 39th in Friday’s time trial after placing third in Thursday’s second stage. He was 3:56 off the time of Tvetcov. McGeough is now 20th in the GC standings, 5:15 off Britton’s lead.
Former FLC rider Griffin Easter, riding with the 303 Project team, was 70th in the time trail, 5:39 back. His older brother Cullen Easter was 77th, 6:08 back. Cullen Easter was fourth on Stage 2. Griffin Easter is 41st in the GC, and Cullen Easter sits in 52nd.
Durango’s Rolando Gonzalez, also of the 303 Project, placed 86th in the time trial, 6:32 back. He is 72nd in the GC.
Saturday’s fourth stage is a downtown criterium in Silver City, and Sunday’s closing stage is a true road race at 100.6 miles.
After his win Thursday, Blevins said his team’s goal was to target stage wins Saturday and Sunday, noting the bigger teams were too far out of reach to reel in for GC goals.
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
