Optum Pro Cycling, SmartStop both led by Canadian climbers at next week’s 2015 Tour of Utah

Optum Pro Cycling has announced the team’s lineup for next week’s Tour of Utah — “America’s toughest stage race” — and along with Phil Gaimon, Canada’s Michael Woods leads the roster as one of Optum’s best climbers.

The route of this year’s Tour of Utah, with its classic finishes in Salt Lake City, Snowbird Resort and Park City mixed with some new, challenging features, is certainly going to put Woods’s reputation to the test. The climbing of this year’s Tour, already the stuff of cycling legend — or infamy — is nearly endless, with its seven days of competition amounting to a literally breathtaking 51,442 feet of elevation gain. Winding through the high terrain of Utah, the tour never dips below 4,000 feet, with stages four, six and seven taking riders above 9,000 feet of elevation.

Stage one, meanwhile, rolls out of its host city of Logan, Utah, rims Logan Canyon, and ascends 7,799 feet. With that kind of vertical grind, the team will be leaning hard on Woods and Gaimon.

“Woods and Gaimon were natural picks as they are the two strongest climbers on the team and capable of a GC result in Utah,” said Optum’s performance director Jonas Carney. “The remainder of the roster is there to support Phil and Mike, race opportunistically, and contest the field sprints.”

“The last few stages are races we have done before and we know what will happen,” Carney added. “The climbs are just massive.”

Team SmartStop, too, is deploying its top climbers as the new, more gruelling Tour of Utah looms next week. Leading SmartStop’s roster are Canada’s Rob Britton and Slovenia’s Jure Kocjan, with the former having recently taken first in general classification at the 2015 Tour of the Gila, a second-place finish in stage three of that race, and third in general classification at the 2014 edition. A machine in both climbing and the time trial, the Saskatchewan-born B.C. rider’s strength on the ascents, along with Kocjan’s own mountain-bred power, will likely be decisive for the team.

The 2015 Tour of Utah begins on August 3 and ends on August 9.