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New Zealand's Hayden Roulston finished second by mere centimetres in a thrilling finish to the seventh stage of the Tour of California cycling race yesterday.
Roulston had done the grunt work for his Cervelo team to help sprinter Thor Hushovd win a stage but was given his chance for a stage victory yesterday.
"We knew that there would be a breakaway today as it happened last year," Cervelo TestTeam sports director Alex Sans Vega said.
The team had worked to place Roulston in position for the breakaway and succeeded after a couple of tries, he added.
The 10-man break included Rinaldo Nocentini, George Hincapie, Frank Schelck, Christian Vande Velde and Pieter Weening.
Nocentini, Roulston and Weening finally were able to separate themselves with less than 4km to go and battled to the finish in the shadow of the famous Rose Bowl stadium, which hosted competition at the 1932 and 1984 Olympics as well as football's World Cup final in 1994.
Roulston was the first to make a move with the line in sight but paid the price for his workload during the week as the fresher Nocentini outraced him in the final 100m.
The Italian clocked three hours, 24 minutes and 44 seconds for the 143km run from Santa Clarita to Pasadena with Roulston second and Weening third on the same time.
Roulston's efforts saw him enter the sprints classification at 12th with 12 points and the mountains classification at 16th with five points.
He is 21st in general classification 6min 20sec behind leader Levi Leipheimer. Jeremy Vennell (Bissell PRo) is the next best Kiwi 35th at 2min 19sec followed by Glen Chadwick (Rock Racing) 41st at 18min 44sec. Te Awamutu's Peter Latham did not finish the stage and fell out of the general classification.
Leipheimer, the two-time defending champion, should claim his third straight title today when the race concludes near San Diego.
Leipheimer goes into the tough final stage, which features four climbs, with a 36-second lead over fellow-American David Zabriskie.
- NZPA
