Jefferson City, Mo. – A rider from Team Type 1 figured into a long breakaway Thursday for the third time in four stages of this year’s Tour of Missouri.

Michael Creed was part of a four-man move that escaped the clutches of the peloton about 10 miles into the 109-mile (175 km) race from St. James to Jefferson City. He and fellow Americans Brad White (OUCH presented by Maxxis), Jeff Louder (BMC Racing Team), and Bernard Van Ulden (Jelly Belly Cycling) built as much as a three-minute lead before being chased down as the race reached the first of two finishing circuits in Missouri’s capital city.

Juan Jose Haedo (Team Saxo Bank) won the field sprint up the hill in front of a large crowd cheering outside the Missouri capitol building. Haedo also took over the race lead from Thor Hushvold (Cervelo Test Team) on tie-breaker criteria, since both have identical cumulative times.

Heading into Friday’s individual time trial in Sedalia, Team Type 1 has six of the 76 riders who are within 26 seconds of Haedo. Aldape is in fourth, 18 seconds back, Creed is seventh (21 seconds), Matt Wilson is 13th (24 seconds) and Darren Lill, Chris Jones, and Valeriy Kobzarenko are all 26 seconds behind.

Aldape remains the Michelob Ultra King of the Mountains leader, a classification he has led since the finish of Stage 2. The Mexican finished 10th Thursday, despite being slowed by a crash on the finishing circuit that also held up teammates Wilson, Lill and Shawn Milne.

Team Type 1 Director Sportif Vassili Davidenko said he hopes Creed will have a strong showing in the 19-mile (30 km) race against the clock on a rolling course.

“Michael is one of our best guys, but it was really tough today,” Davidenko said. “He spent 90 miles in the lead. I was just hoping he would save a little once the gap came down so he is ready for the time trial.”

Creed said it was possible – but not likely – his breakaway would stay away all the way to the finish.

“They (the pack) would have had to misjudged it a little bit,” he said. “We were hoping they were going to give us 2:50 or 2:30 with 20 miles to go. That’s what we were hoping for. We made the collective decision that with 20 miles to go we were going to put it down as hard as we could. But they didn’t give us that much time. I think we only had a minute-and-a-half at that point.”

Photo by: Bob Cullinan, CycleTo.com