Cycling: US stars pipped as Henderson unwinds his sprint

New Zealand rider Greg Henderson won the Philadelphia International race in the United States yesterday, with a powerful display of sprinting.

New Zealand's other top road cyclists - Julian Dean and Sarah Ulmer, who are coming back from injury - had useful hit-outs.

Ulmer, racing in the 92.69km Commerce Bank Liberty Classic, also run in Philadelphia yesterday, finished second in the Queen of the Mountains category and 24th overall.

Teammate Michelle Hyland was ninth in the mountains category and 34th overall.

The next best New Zealander was Brei Gudsell, who was 35th.

Dean, who is trying to prove his fitness for next month's Tour de France, is 110th in general classification after two stages of the Tour of Switzerland.

Top riders such as German Jan Ullrich and Belgium's Tom Boonen are riding the Swiss tour as a final warm-up for the Tour de France.

Henderson, whose Commonwealth Games was ruined by a hip injury in March, took full advantage of a good lead-out by his Health Net Maxxis team through the final field of 30 and won the sprint to the finish of the 251.05km race.

"Around the roundabout all we could do is get him into position and let him do his own thing," Henderson's teammate Karl Menzies said.

"He beat the fastest guys in the US - I guess that means he is the fastest guy in the US."

Bike NZ high-performance director Michael Flynn said yesterday Ulmer would do several events with the New Zealand teams that were racing there - one a BikeNZ team and the other a development team called Jazz Apple.

Like Henderson, Ulmer had an injury which curtailed her involvement in the Commonwealth Games.

Flynn said the long-term nature of Ulmer's back injury had been career-threatening and it was good to see her back in action.

"She will do a number of events in the US and then decide when she will head to Europe to prepare for the world championships," Flynn said.

Ulmer last year switched from track cycling, in which she had won world and Olympic titles and set the world record in the 3000m individual pursuit, to focus on winning the road time trial at this year's world championships in Austria in September.

- NZPA