KEY POINTS:
VARESE, Italy - New Zealand's leading road cyclist Julian Dean defied a brutally hard 260km course to finish 35th in the world championships in Italy today.
The Team Garmin professional finished near the front of the main peloton with the big name sprinters not given the opportunity to figure in the finish of the 15-lap bruiser in Varese in the foothills of the Alps in northern Italy.
The championship became a war of attrition with only 77 of the 203 starters completing, in a race dominated at the end by the home country.
Alessandro Ballan won by three seconds from fellow Italian Damiano Cunego, Denmark's Matti Breschel and another Italian Davide Rebellin after launching a successful solo attack two kilometres from the finish line.
Dean finished eighth wheel in the peloton - 4min 53sec down on Ballan.
BikeNZ national road coach Jacques Landry said he was surprised at how the race unfolded.
"Julian decided wisely that he needed to mark the key riders Paolo Bettini and Oscar Freire but when the Italian lieutenants went up the road, the Spanish and Belgian teams did not chase them down," Landry said.
"It was a bit disappointing for Julian because he rode really well and had the legs today. He had to sit and wait but strangely for a big race like this, they let the lesser lights take the honours.
"When the final break came Spain and Belgium only had one rider each in the break and no-one else tried to ride it down. Had they done so, then it would have given Julian the chance to sprint it out.
"His finishing position won't reflect his really good race. It was certainly quite a weird world championship, and the first for quite some years that the big names of the sport did not feature."
Fellow New Zealand Glen Chadwick dropped out after he lost time with a puncture.
"As a small nation we were car No 28 in the support and it took quite a while for us to get to Glen. From that point he managed to finally rejoin but it was at the bottom of the climb when the heat finally went on at the front so he was on a hiding to nothing," Landry said.
- NZPA
