Day 3 – Stage 2 – Santa Rosa to Sacramento
A message from Mark Olson, the Priority Health Cycling Team Manager
"Good teams have a few good days. Great teams overcome adversity and strive to become CHAMPIONS."
After an incredible opening day performance at the Prologue the team battled through numerous untimely flat tires and mishaps to find itself in the yellow jersey, only to have it taken away by a difficult decision made by the officials in Stage 1. Many teams would find it tough to deal with these circumstances. However, its difficult times in business, sport and in life in general that shape individuals and teams into either the ordinary or the extraordinary.
I am very proud of the way our team as a whole reacted to the decision of the officials after Stage 1, right thru their performance in Stage 2. They have had such a positive attitude the team, it showed true professionalism. And then they went directly on the attack in Stage 2.
Omer Kem has been training at Glen Mitchell's house for months preparing for the Tour. He has ridden up Trinity (the first big climb in yesterday's stage that the break went off on) many, many times preparing himself to seize an opportunity if it were to arise in the Tour. That opportunity did arise and he delivered in a huge way. I have driven up that climb and the rest of that stage when we as a team were practicing that stage, it's an extremely tough climb. If you have raced a bike in Michigan and been out on a break for hours suffering like dog you can only imagine how grueling it must have been for Omer. To be in the break for many, many hours in that terrain with Pro Tour caliber riders is nearly unthinkable for us mortal club racers! It takes a lot of guts and sacrifice for the team to put itself in that position.
By Omer torturing himself out there all day, the rest of the team gets to sit in the group and save energy. This is vital for Ben Jacque-Maynes, the more energy he can save now the better chance he has at keeping his overall GC position. This also helps the rest of the guys save energy and enables them to attack and make the break at some other critical time in the race. I'm very proud of Omer but not surprised, it's that type of team effort that earned him a place on this very special team from the beginning.
All the guys rode great yesterday but a few things need to be said about two other special efforts. First, Emile (Trini) crashed HARD, TWICE, in Stage 1. The race medical team gave him the "jersey" for using up the most Tagaderm. Tagaderm is the material they use to treat road rash and Trini has a LOT of deep road rash. It's difficult to sleep let alone race your bike with the amount of road rash he has. But he got up in the morning, slapped on some more Tagaderm, climbed on this bike and raced hard all day. He ended up 25th in the sprint, he was in a good position to place even higher but got squeezed out in the charge to the line.
Secondly, Scott (Swizer) after riding extremely strong in Stage 1, making the final selection with Ben and helping him at the end, woke up in the middle of the night (before Stage 2) with the flu. Now you know how you feel when you have the flu. You can't get yourself out of bed and into the car to get to work. Well Swizer got out of bed (basically didn't sleep all night) went to the race doctor to confirm that: yes you have the flu with a 101 temp. He got on his bike anyway and started the day to try and ride it out. He gave it all he had and I think even a little more, but in this world class field its tough to survive over the climbs when everything is spot on, let alone when you have flu. Swizer had to drop out. He will be greatly missed and the guys will all have to step it up to make up for that loss.
So at the end of 3 days of racing the team has been in the action every day, we've been in the spot light, we've been on the podium, we've had the King of the Mountain jersey and we are still in third on GC! You should all be extremely proud of your team. The accomplishments to date are enormous and anything from here on out is icing on the cake!
Stay tuned, Stage 3 is a toughie!
Mark Olson
Team Manager
Priority Health Cycling Team Presented by Bissell
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