San Luis Obispo, CA – 6th June 2010 – HTC-Columbia’s Matt Goss has powered to victory in the bunch sprint that decided the Philadelphia International Championships, the USA’s biggest one-day race, on Sunday.

The young Australian’s victory made it two out of two for HTC-Columbia in Philadelphia on Sunday, coming just hours after Ina-Yoko Teutenberg had won the corresponding women’s event, the Philadelphia Liberty Classic, for a fourth time.

A recent winner of a bunch sprint stage in the Tour of Italy, Goss’s second victory of the season was taken in another hard-fought dash for the line over Slovakian Peter Sagan and Norway’s Alexander Kristoff.

“This race is always a tough one, but the exceptional heat and humidity this year made it even harder than usual to get the win,” said HTC-Columbia men’s team director in Philadelphia, Tristan Hoffman.

“I think only around a quarter of the 200 starters actually completed the course because of the conditions.

“Then a big group went early on and we had to chase very hard to keep it under control, the whole team were working flat out and they did a great job pulling it all back together.

“We had Matt as our leader, we knew he was in good shape after the Giro stage win, so we really drove it hard to make sure it all came together by the finish. We had to fight very hard, but it paid off.

“These races are very important for us, and we came here determined to get some good results,” said Hoffman. “It’s great that it all worked out so well.”