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SALT LAKE CITY — Bicyclists from the Tour of Utah swept by spectators in wave after wave Friday evening, drawing crowds in the shadow of downtown Salt Lake City's skyline for Stage 5 of the weeklong competition.
Several city blocks were closed to traffic Friday for the stage, which consisted of 122 riders from 16 teams and spectators in the thousands spread throughout the course. Competitors started their route at 500 North next to the Capitol, traveled up City Creek Canyon, then to the Avenues, through the University of Utah campus and then west along South Temple.
At State Street, the cyclists turned north toward the Capitol and completed the same loop seven times in the span of about two hours Friday.
"To the non-fan, it kind of gives a little more excitement," said Eric Sevy, who traveled from Las Vegas with his wife, Bambi, to see the Tour of Utah. "It's not just two seconds and they're gone."
The Sevys have attended every stage of the Tour of Utah race for the past six years. The couple said they love the race because of the accessibility of the athletes.
"You can really get close to the pro riders," said Sevy, who plans to compete Saturday morning in the Ultimate Challenge, a race for amateur riders along the Snowbird stage of the tour.
Bambi Sevy said many of the bicyclists who are anxious to make themselves available to fans are in fact world class athletes.
"You can't just walk up to a Super Bowl player after the game," she quipped.
The athletic display through the city center was made possible by a heavy logistics effort put on by Salt Lake police, which used several law enforcement vehicles to cut off access to roads and drive ahead of riders as a precaution.
Safety measures of the race itself were marred as it concluded Friday when one person was seriously injured by the course's metal finish line arch, which collapsed around 7 p.m. in windy weather. Awards were being given out at the time.
The person was knocked unconscious and taken to the trauma center at University of Utah hospital. One other person was injured and treated on scene. Other information about the incident wasn't immediately available.
Some spectators were puzzled at the race's placement in downtown during a rush hour just before the weekend.
"My question is, why do it on a Friday night?" said Juan Canals, who works in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and was worried an impromptu closure at the intersection of North Temple and West Temple would keep the building's guests from their scheduled events. "Maybe they did it ... to attract people."
The attraction was enough to bring over Solomon Wong, who works downtown and has been a fan of the Tour of Utah over the last few years. Wong said police did a good job of warning people in the area about the event.
"It was easy to just walk over," Wong said. "(Watching) the Salt Lake stage is easy ... (and) I saw the signs up about it all week."
The tour has been going on all week. Cyclists rode through Logan on Monday, Tremonton to Ogden Tuesday, Antelope Island State Park to Bountiful on Wednesday and Soldier Hollow in Heber Valley on Thursday, before competing in the sixth stage Friday in Salt Lake City.
Two more stages remain: the seventh, from Salt Lake City to Snowbird, on Saturday; and the eighth in Park City on Sunday. For more information on the tour, visit tourofutah.com.
Contributing: Whitney Evans, Keith McCord
