Jens Voigt Wins USA Pro Challenge Stage Four With Titanic Solo Effort

Jens Voigt wins Stage Four of the USA Pro Challenge from Aspen to Beaver Creek on August 23, 2012. (Garrett W. Ellwood/Getty Images)

RadioShack-Nissan’s Jens Voigt joined a breakaway ten minutes into Stage Four of the USA Pro Challenge, set out on his own after 12 miles and rode alone to victory.

When Voigt attacked the break with 85 miles left in the stage, no one bothered to respond. Common sense said that no one would or could make a serious attack 12 miles into a 97.3-mile stage.

All those riders underestimated Jens Voigt. The German rider, 25 days shy of his 41st birthday, had more power in his legs than anyone else in the race. Despite having been in a break in every stage in the race already, Voigt still had what it took.

Voigt is not the fastest rider, though he might be the strongest. Usually his role is to pull hard in the middle of races, dishing out pain to his competitors, softening up the opposition so his team leader can race for the win.

Not this day—this day belonged to Jens Voigt. The German strong man beat the entire field by three minutes.

Tejay Van Garderen took over the yellow jersey by finishing a few feet ahead of Christian Vande Velde.

A breakaway formed quickly in Stage Four; most of the riders were too tired to spend an hour sparring, with a 12,000-foot climb starting the day. Half a mile into the race a break of 17 riders, including RadioShack-Nissan’s Jen’s Voigt, formed in front of the field.

Craig Lewis of Champion Systems attacked at the drop of the flag, joined quickly by Eduard Beltran and Jorge Castiblanco (EPM-Une,) Christopher Jones (United Healthcare,) and Rubens Bertogliati (Team Type 1.)

This group swelled to a dozen after ten minutes of racing when Jens Voigt, Jesse Anthony (Optum,) Andres Diaz and Matt Cooke (Exergy,) Roman Kreuziger and Fabio Aru (Astana,) Lachlan Morton (Garmin-Sharp,) Rory Sutherland (United HealthCare,) Ivan Santaromita (BMC,) and Julian Kyer (Bissell) joined the break.

Voigt apparently felt like a little solitude. Twelve miles up the Cat 1 Independence Pass ascent the RadioShack rider attacked the break and that was the last anyone in the peloton saw him until the podium ceremony.

The German powerhouose rode into a driving rainstorm and out the other side. He kept his pace up mile after mile, climbing up to Leadville, Tennessee Pass, and the Cat 3 Battle Mountain, steadily increasing his gap over the field.

It wasn’t until Battle Mountain that the peloton admitted they couldn’t catch the mighty Voigt, despite the combined firepower of all those professional riders. Voigt’s lead extended from under four to over six minutes as the peloton started thinking about how to best come in second.

The RadioShack rider took it easy on the final Cat 3 climb up to Beaver creek; he knew he had the race sewn up, and he wanted to savor his first major race win since 2010. The crowds in Beaver Creaked roared for several minutes as and after he arrived. The crowd was sincerely moved by Voigt’s strength, courage, and ability to push himself through more pain than most riders could tolerate.

 The arrival of the rest of the race, three minutes after Voigt, was anticlimactic, even though the next wearer of the yellow jersey was being decided.  

As it happened, Tejay Van Garderen finished third, two places ahead of Garmin-Sharp’s Christian Vande Velde, which earned back the 24-year-old BMC rider the yellow jersey he had won in Stage Two and lost in Stage Three.

The pair are still exactly equal in time (though by rights the BMC rider should have a one-second advantage—video tape shows he crossed the finish line over a second ahead of Vande Velde in Stage Two.)

The General Classification isn’t likely to change in Stage Five. Despite starting with a cat 1 climb, tomorrow will be a day for the sprinters, with much of the stage downhill and the final ten kilometers flat.

All the GC contenders will be battling on Stage Six with Cat 2 climbs up Boulder Canyon and Lee Hill Road and the final Cat 1 summit finish at Flagstaff Mountain. The Boulder Canyon climb is 15 miles long, and the road keeps rising for the next 15 miles after it. Lee Hill Riooad is about half as long, and the final steep rise to Flagstaff Mountain is three-and-a-half miles, gaining 1200 feet in elevation over that distance.

Here is where the top 15 in GC, all within 25 seconds of the leader, will try to break their opponents and steal some time to take into Sunday’s short time trial. Stage Six cannot help but be epic.