Taylor Phinney wins Olympias Tour

Taylor Phinney (Trek-Livestrong) won the Olympia’s Tour in the Netherlands on Saturday. The first American to claim the overall victory in the UCI 2.2 race, Phinney won four of seven stages and finished second in two. Teammate Jesse Sergent also made the podium, finishing third overall behind Coen Vermeltfoort (Rabobank Continental).

“I was specifically targeting this race due to the short TTs at the beginning and end, knowing I’d have a good shot at winning them and also the overall,” Phinney said after Saturday’s final stage.

The young American broke a twelve-year Dutch winning streak, and Rabobank Continental’s eight-year grip on the race. The race also marked Phinney’s first stage race victory as a professional.

Phinney held his lead from start to finish. He won the prologue by 17 seconds over Sergent, and then padded his lead by taking a set of field sprints in stages 1 and 2.

“We took 1st, 2nd, and 4th in the prologue with me, Jesse, and Alex … then proceeded to defend the jersey for five more days. It was an incredible task and the boys on our Trek-Livestrong team rode absolutely amazing, so very professional.”

Stage 3 saw Phinney take second in the field sprint behind Vermeltfoort. The day was marred for Trek-Livestrong by the crash of Alex Dowsett, described by Phinney as “my stellar leadout man,” who was forced to drop out with a broken scapula.

Phinney held on to his lead in stages 4 and 5, again finishing in bunch sprints, with the help of his Trek-Livestrong squad. “The team is the one and only reason I was able to hold onto this jersey, that and my love for time trialing … but mostly the team, without them I would have been in big trouble!”

Riders faced a split stage on Saturday. Phinney placed second in the morning’s short road race before cementing his lead in the afternoon time trial, coming in 9 seconds ahead of Australian U23 Time Trial Champion Dennis Rohan (Jayco Skins) with a time of 11:26.

Next weekend, Phinney will contest the U23 Paris-Roubaix, a race he won last year. “Things are looking good going into U23 Paris-Roubaix,” Phinney said. His success at Olympia’s Tour certainly bodes well for a repeat performance of last year.

Before Phinney and his Trek-Livestrong teammates headed over to Europe for seven weeks of racing, a few of them rode the Morgul Bismark loop in Boulder with VeloNews. Here’s a short video from that day.

FILED UNDER: News / Race Report / Road TAGS: Olympias Tour / Taylor Phinney