Team H&R BLOCK WINS also takes 3rd tp pace to riders on the podium! AWESOME!
It took a photo finish review, but Cameron MacKinnon Team H&R Block threw his bike to narrowly edged out Bailey McKnight of at the line to win the $15,000 2011 Giro di Burnaby on Thursday, capping a great night for the local teams at BC Superweek.
Cameron MacKinnon hits the finishline
Justin Kerr, MacKinnon’s teammate on Team H&R BLOCK, finished third in the mad dash to the finish line, less than a tenth of a second ahead of a group led by Ryan Anderson of Steve Bauer’s SpiderTech squad and an impressive international of top professionals like USA criterium champ Daniel Holloway, former Canadian road race champion Will Routley, one-time track champions from Denmark (Michael Smith Larsen), and Australia (Tommy Nankervis).
That MacKinnon won the final sprint shouldn’t be that shocking. The 26-year-old Calgary native has gold and silver medals at the Pan-American Championships on the track in 2007, and has a couple of national titles as well. The challenge in his first year of competitive road racing has been setting up for that finish. “A sprint finish is kind of home territory but the process of getting to that finish is brand new,” said MacKinnon, “And a lot of hard work so the boys on my team have really helped me a lot and helped me develop on the road this season.”
MacKinnon completed 30 laps around the 1.85-kilometer loop of North Burnaby in one hour, 12 minutes and 51.80 seconds, with a crowd of 4,000 cheering the sprint finish after the Ferrari pace car pulled ahead down the last straightaway.
The six-rider break built its lead as high as 25 seconds. But in the final four laps it slipped to 18, to 13, to 12, all the way down to eight seconds for the final time around the closed street circuit. For a while down the back straightaway it looked like they’d got caught, but they managed to stay ahead – by one second.
“It’s tough not to worry when you see the gap coming down and with the boys on the break sprinting for primes it got a little unsteady,” said MacKinnon. “I just wanted to keep it rolling smooth and try to conserve and carry it to the finish.”
Team H&R Block understands how important BC Superweek is to the team that has graduated riders like Svein Tuft, Routley, Anderson, Marsh Cooper (Kelly Benefit Strategies_OptumHealth) and Nic Hamilton (Jelly Belly presented by Kenda) to top North American teams – and Europe -- over the past decade plus.
Watch the race video and interview with Cam http://www.canadiancyclist.com/dailynews.php?id=22211
www.hrblock.ca | Copyright © 2012 Team H&R Block
Website by The Curious Communications Company