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2014 Tour of Alberta Stage 5: Daryl Impey wins final stage, steals title from Dumoulin

Tour of Alberta
September 7, 2014
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On Sunday’s final stage of the 2014 Tour of Alberta, Orica-GreenEdge ambushed race leader Tom Dumoulin (The Netherlands/Giant-Shimano) to launch their man Daryl Impey (South Africa) to the stage and GC win. Impey was nine seconds in arrears at the beginning of the stage but the bonus seconds of Sunday’s conquest gave him the race win by a single second.

Canadian Christian Meier told CCM before the gun that snaring the title for Impey was Orica-GreenEdge’s objective for the day.

The course consisted of eleven laps of an 11-km city circuit. King of the Mountain points were on offer on three of the climbs up Bellamy Hill at the 25, 57 and 91 km marks, while the intermediate sprints were placed at 44 and 88 km. In the slick conditions there were several crashes, and a few riders had to retire.

The first break was pulled back on the second lap, and Taylor Sheldon (USA/5-Hour Energy) wasn’t able to get far on lap three, where King of the Mountains Simon Yates (Australia/Orica-GreenEdge) took the maximum KOM points. On the fourth lap Giant-Shimano’s Georg Preidler (Austria) and Yates’s Canadian teammate Christian Meier attacked before the first sprint and then faded back to the bunch after Meier took the sprint.

The day’s longest-lasting breakaway emerged after the second KOM point. Yates, who had attacked to take the full points, found himself with 11 other riders, including Canadian Zach Bell (Team SmartStop).

With possible snow (!) threatening Edmonton, the escape kept navigating laps as Bissell and then Garmin-Sharp whipped along the peloton. On the eighth lap one of the fugitives, Dutchman Steven Kruijswijk of Belkin, bolted on the others to climb the final intermediate sprint and KOM. Kruijswijk and his breakmates were brought to heel with 18.5-km to go.

The final lap was frantic and tense as Dumoulin looked to position himself favourably and various riders tried to fly away. Orica-GreenEdge were very active in the last couple of kilometres looking to launch Daryl Impey (South Africa). Top Canadian Ryan Anderson was in the mix, but Impey was too strong with too effective of a lead out and Anderson came runner-up.

Anderson on coming in second today: “Yeah, I’m happy with the results. I had two podium finishes this week and to be the best Canadian is an added bonus. The weather makes for good racing.They did a good job of the route. Maybe the gravel was a bit loose but it was okay.”

Filthy, wet and exhausted at the finish, Dumoulin’s crestfallen face told the story of losing the race lead he had held since the prologue on Wednesday. He told a television interviewer the obvious, “Right now it’s disappointing to lose with one second.” As consolation he’ll keep the white young rider’s jersey.

Only recently exonerated of probenecid doping charges, Impey wore the last cowboy hat with relief and joy.

2014 Tour of Alberta Stage 5
1) Daryl Impey (South Africa/Orica-GreenEdge)
2) Ryan Anderson (Canada/Optum presented by Kelly Benefit Strategies) s.t.
3) Ramunas Navardauskas (Lithuania/Garmin-Sharp) s.t.

2014 Tour of Alberta Final GC
1) Daryl Impey (South Africa/Orica-GreenEdge) 16:07:50
2) Tom Dumoulin (The Netherlands/Giant-Shimano) +0:01
3) Ruben Zepuntke (Germany/Bissell Development) +0:08
5) Ryan Anderson (Canada/Optum) +0:11