The UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling Team concluded a successful season opening at the 2014 Tour de San Luis in Argentina yesterday. 2014 was off to an outstanding start on stage 1 when GC contender Marc de Maar made his way into an effective 5-man breakaway. Despite a crash late in the stage, de Maar finished 3rd in stage 1, and therefore also held 3rd place in the General Classification. The team saw further success in the coming stages where long, steep climbs and sweltering Argentinian heat played into the hands of Lucas Euser, Isaac Bolivar, and Marc de Maar. At the conclusion of stage 2, de Maar held 2nd place overall and the men of the UnitedHealthcare blue train led the Teams Classification. From there, the team focused on defending and improving de Maar’s placement overall, as well as that of Lucas Euser, but a series of crashes and misfortunes compromised their efforts.
The team fought back fiercely and concluded the race with Marc de Maar inside the top ten at 7th place overall, with teammates Lucas Euser and Isaac Bolivar securing 13th and 14th overall, respectively. “The races always end, ALWAYS, after the white line. Today, the boys fought to the last and I’m very happy,” commented Sports Director Roberto Damiani.
The blue train showed excellent early-season fitness, tenacity, consistency, and teamwork throughout the tour’s seven stages, earning the squad 2nd in the Teams Classification- a promising result, indicative of the successes to come throughout 2014.
Following the momentum of the women’s overall victory by Allison Powers, as well as the teams classification victory in last week’s Tour Femenino de San Luis, this is a decidedly successful debut for the new kit, the riders, staff and sponsors of the 2014 UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling Team.
“The men picked up where the women left off in San Luis. Marc’s 7th place in GC against the best in the world and the solid team work, speaks volumes for what we are going to see in 2014 from our team,” shared director Mike Tamayo, “We have built a great team, and motivated them in a way that is showing at the races.” The UnitedHealthcare blue train next sets their sites on the 2014 Jayco Herald Sun Tour.