Cycling: Van Uden wins criterium stage for PureBlack

Roman Van Uden. Photo / Getty Images

New Zealand's PureBlack cycling team made another mark in the United states when their rider Roman Van Uden took out the criterium in the third stage of the Redlands Classic in California.

For Van Uden, the 2006 secondary schools champion, it was his second big win in the United States having won the Tour of Gila's criterium stage in 2009.

Today's win put him in the lead in the sprinters standings with a day left to go in the four-day race.

"We came to the United States to make our mark early in the season and we had set the objective of taking one of the five victories that Redlands has on offer this weekend," the team's business director Greg Cross said.

" Redlands is one of the oldest and most prestigious races in the US so it's fantastic to pick up our first big win here against a world-class field."

"Roman rode an amazing race which was reinforced by a huge amount of support from his team mates," team sports director Carl Williams said.

"Today's criterium contained a large number of sprint jersey points so the team's objective was to race really aggressively right from the start to accumulate as many sprint points as possible.

"After yesterday's race which was extremely demanding and hot we knew there would be a lot of tired riders out there tonight.

"Roman won three sprints and as we got down to final laps he pulled away in a break-away of about seven riders to make it first over the line."

The starting team for the Redlands Classic was Tim Gudsell, Glen Chadwick, Daniel Barry, Scott Lyttle, Mike Northey, Shem Rodger, Van Uden and James Williamson.

Last weekend PureBlack Racing made a successful United States debut at the San Dimas stage race in California with Van Uden winning the climbers classification Northey winning the sprinters jersey.

- NZPA