Hong Kong, SAR – The Champion System Pro Cycling Team – Asia’s first pro continental squad – will field a roster for the Tour of Utah that includes three Chinese riders, two each from Australia and the United States and one from Germany.
Champion System General Manager Ed Beamon said the team’s line-up is well-suited for the six-day, 545-mile race that begins Tuesday and includes 38,500 feet of climbing.
“We have a mix of potential stage winners in guys like Will Clarke, Craig Lewis and Chris Butler,” Beamon said. “Certainly Craig and Chris can be in the mix in the overall if the last two stages are as difficult as we think they will be.”
Clarke won the prologue in May at the Tour of Japan and Stage 2 at the Santos Tour Down Under in January while Lewis captured Stage 2 at the Tour de Beauce in Canada in June. Lewis will also be an asset in the Stage 2 team time trial, having twice been a member of winning team time trial squads the past three seasons during the 2011 Giro d’Italia and the 2009 Tour de Romandie.
Butler said he has been training in Utah the past 10 days and has performed reconnaissance on all the key stages. Saturday’s 101.1-mile race to the Snowbird Ski Resort and Sunday’s 76.7-mile stage that starts and finishes in Park City should be the most decisive, he said.
“Last year, the stage to Snowbird broke the race apart, with more than a minute between first and fifth place and more two minutes for the guys finishing sixth through 10th,” Butler said. “It seems like the last stage this year is going to be even tougher than that. So it’s going to be a pretty big spread between places, which is good. It’s going to come down to those two stages.”
Champion System will also benefit from Assistant Director Burke Swindlehurst’s knowledge of the race. The Utah native and resident has previously served as the race’s competition director and was runner-up on the Snowbird stage in 2009.
Champion System Pro Cycling Team Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah Roster (Aug. 7-12):
Chris Butler (USA), Will Clarke (AUS), Pengda Jiao (CHN), Matthias Friedemann (GER), Craig Lewis (USA), Biao Liu (CHN), Cameron Wurf (AUS), Gang XU (CHN).