Tapei City, Taiwan Team Type 1′s Shawn Milne fought to the end to defend his title at the Tour de Taiwan during a thrilling final stage criterium in Tapei City.

The race for the overall between Milne and race leader John Murphy (Health Net presented by Maxxis) came down to the final sprint thanks to a 10-second time bonus for the winner of the 60-lap, 37-mile (60 km) race that circled the tallest building in the world. Milne would need to win the stage and have Murphy finish no better than fourth.

Murphy narrowly avoided a crash on the final lap to finish eighth in the bunch sprint. But Milne came up short in his quest for the victory, finishing fourth. The result allowed Murphy to hang on for the overall win, while Milne finished second, 10 seconds behind. Takashi Miyazawa (Team Meitan Hompo-GDR) finished third, at 14 seconds.

“Shawn put in some big efforts to escape and it took a little off his sprint,” Team Type 1 Sport Director Ed Beamon said. “The guys were very good today, but we just could not get the extra seconds and Health Net did what they had to do.”

Other overall placings for Team Type 1 at its second international stage race were: Chris Jones 29th (1:01 behind), Emile Abraham 35th (1:15 behind), Valeriy Kobzarenko 46th (3:43 behind) and Phil Southerland 78th (18:09 behind). On Stage 5, Milne scored Team Type 1s first professional win, one of nine top 10 placings for the team during the eight-stage, 495-mile (798 km) race. Team Type 1 finished fifth in the team standings.

“I am pretty happy with the team’s performance in our first two events,” Beamon said.

At the Tour of Langkawi in February, Team Type 1 finished second overall in the team classification and Matt Wilson finished 10th overall. Next up for Team Type 1 is its first domestic racing action as a team at the San Dimas (Calif.) Stage Race March 28-30.