Van Heerden takes field sprint for win

The atmosphere at the Shorewood Criterium was electric with more than 6,000 fans lining the café and bar strip. Additionally, a good number of residents had set up outside their homes along the residential streets to watch the action unfold; they were not disappointed as over 100 pro riders zipped around the 1.3-mile course at an average speed of 30 mph in the men's event. The speeds were kept high due to the shortening of the race by 30 minutes, fire-engines needed to come onto the course to put out a fire in one of the apartments, and the high number of cash primes towards the end.

Adam Mills (Mercy Cycling) said, "It was fun, fast and rough like a good Superweek race should be. Strangest thing happened, though. There was a fire in an apartment on the course during the race. Full halt for the race until all was resolved, and go again! The best thing about the race being shortened is that all the primes and points sprints are compressed, which makes for a really tough race. To make matters even more interesting, there are a lot of new guys that are way too tense here."

The primes and red jersey sprint points were hotly contested and this kept the pace very high and strung out. South Africa's Jay Thompson was on fire, winning the first two sprints on offer, in his bid to win back the sprint jersey after losing it to Rob White (Team Geargrinder) on Thursday when Team MTN opted to take a rest day at the Ray Basso Bensonville Criterium.

When the late breakaway of 10 riders had rolled away with 15 laps remaining, it halted Thompson's progress to win back the jersey and he now lies second overall, 12 points behind Rob White (Team Geargrinder) and just two points ahead of Chad Hartley, also of Team Geargrinder. It is shaping up to be an exciting battle between the two teams from South Africa (MTN) and the United States (Geargrinder).

The threatening breakaway contained a number of strong riders including Andrew Crater (Wheel & Sprocket), Heath Blackgrove (Team Hotel San Jose), Riccardo Van der Velde (Garmin-Slipstream), Spencer Beamer (Team Mountain Khakis), James Stemper (Team Geargrinder), Matthias Schroger (Gourmetfein), Carlos Vargas (Team Hotel San Jose), Jorge Alvarado (Kahala La-Grange), Frank Dierking and Bradley Potgieter (Team MTN) and they looked to have it in the bag provided they worked well together.

However, the break never advanced more than 15 seconds ahead of the field and a sudden injection of power surprisingly brought the break back just before the Super Prime with four laps remaining was announced. This increased the pace substantially with riders fighting for position near the front, but it was Hans Dekkers (Garmin-Slipstream) who rounded the final corner five seconds clear of the field to pocket the $1666 in cash.

Christoff Van Heerden (Team MTN) won the field sprint ahead Carlos Vargas (Team Hotel San Jose) while Dekkers was third. The win by Van Heerden was his first stage win at Superweek, the second for Team MTN, and it moves him into fourth overall. Fly V Australia's yellow jersey holder, Bernard Sulzberger, and the rest of his team were the notable absentees from the race as they were taking a rest day. However, Sulzberger's points lead was enough for him to retain yellow ahead of Hans Dekkers and Andreas Muller.