Mt. Torrens, Australia - Nathan O'Neill of the Health Net Pro Cycling Team Presented by Maxxis stormed the tough Mt. Torrens time trial course to win his seventh career Australian National Time Trial title Thursday. He completed the 40Km run in 53:14.74 (45.07 km/h), finishing almost three minutes ahead of second place finisher Luke Roberts (CSC), despite dropping his chain before the final climb.

"It wasn't easy at all," O'Neill told CyclingNews after his ride. "It was really, really solid. I just kept rolling my over all the way through, trying to put the wind up everybody else and make them realize they would have to fight for it. I didn't want to give them a look in from the start so I hit them really hard on the first lap. I don't know if everybody cracked or if I just got a pretty decent gap but I just put it on cruise control after a little while," he added.

O'Neill passed a number of riders who started ahead of him, including third-place finisher Ben Day (Carvalhelhos-Boavista), and got within two minutes of Roberts, who started five minutes ahead of him.

Results

1 Nathan O'Neill Health Net/Maxxis   53.14.74 (45.07 km/h)
2 Luke Roberts  CSC                   2.59.23
3 Ben Day  Carvalhelhos-Boavista      3.12.14