Rio Grande Elite’s Taj Krieger Wins U23 General Classification at the Tour De Panama Stage Race
The following write up was written by Taj Krieger, a few weeks removed from winning the U23 general classification blue jersey at the 6-day Tour De Panama. This results is Rio Grande Elite’s first overall international result for a program that has started racing outside the US as of last season. This is a huge result for the team that looks forward to more adventures outside the country. Taj’s write up is below:
“The Tour of Panama 2023 was a great experience. The whole team headed down one or two days before the race started and we had a chance to all ride together around Panama City and get ready for the upcoming days.
The Team is Ready for Stage 1 of Tour De Panama with a Pre-race Spin.
Stage 1 was going to be a short team time trial, so we went out and did a Recon on the course. When the day finally came to do the race the team did it pretty well executed team time trial and we all work together well pulling off at the points that we had planned the day before, and we managed to slide into fourth place overall out of 20 or so teams.
Gabriel Gutiérrez leading Rio’s Team Time Trial Effort on Stage 1: Tour de Panama. Our Fezzari Veyo SL’s aero frames helped us secure 5th overall out of 22 teams, sitting 18 seconds back on GC.
Stage 2 took place on a racetrack where we would do 20 laps of the circuit and then go up a crazy steep and gravel climb where all the laps everybody had to run alongside their bike or carry it because it was too hard to ride up. Going into the bottom of the climb the team made sure Kade and I were near the front and we managed to slide in to the climb in fifth wheel or so, this helped a lot because we had to end up running it and Chaos quickly broke out. Kade and I work together for a couple laps and then unfortunate mechanical took Kade out of the chase and I fought by myself for the remainder of the laps.
To see video of the first ascent of the gravel climb, Click Here.
Team Photo On The Racetrack Following Stage 2: Tour De Panama.
After a good finish on stage 2 we moved on to stage 3 which was a mostly flat/rolling day with a big climb at the end, Kade and I were able to work together on the climb and the team really helped out by providing bottles and water for us. We started the climb off strong right behind the leading group and managed to drop the u23 l and took a decent amount of time on him by the finish line. By the end of this day I had moved into the leaders jersey for the u23.
After Alex Marr set brutal pace at the base of the final climb (8 miles, 4.5% avg), Taj and Kade were left to fight for the U23 with two riders from HYF.
Taj Krieger, 7th on the stage, first overall in the U23 category after Stage 3 of the Tour De Panama.
Stage four and five were unexpectedly hard with the team having to do a lot of chasing and everybody working together well to make sure we stayed in the front for the u23 lead, Kade also managed to fight for a stage win in the breakaway but it didn't work out.
The team chasing down multiple splits between stages 4 and 5.
The next day the team was on the front a lot helping control the race and make sure that no GC threats got too far up the road, on the final circuit we planned to have two of our guys go in for the sprint finish unfortunately Alex came down in a crash, and a windy finish led to Gabe and Sean being able to pull off two top tens which is really good.
Rio Grande Elite Controlling the Front on Stage 6 of Tour De Panama.
Gabe and Sean finish 7th and 8th on the Final Stage of Tour De Panama!
Taj finishes 1st overall and Kade 3rd in the U23 classification!
Overall this experience was great it was really fun to be able to defend and attack all week with a lot of strong teammates and competitors and I'm super glad we got to go down to the race and come home with a Jersey.” -Taj K.
