Ballarat, Aus - Rory Sutherland of the Health Net Pro Cycling Team Presented by Maxxis followed up his strong second place in the Australian National Time Trial Championship with third place in the Road Race on Sunday, 0:49 behind winner Matt Lloyd (Silence-Lotto). Adam Hansen (Team High Road), who won the Australian TT title Thursday, barely bested Sutherland on the line to take second.

The highly selective 10.1 km course, which the riders covered 16 times, coupled with warm Australian summer conditions, took its toll on the elite field, which included most of the top Australian professionals. While over 100 riders started, only 35 finished, including Sutherland's Health Net Presented by Maxxis teammate, Karl Menzies, who earned a solid 20th place.

"I was definately happy with the road race result," Sutherland said. "It was a tough course, with tough competitors. Expectations were for Karl or myself to do the best we could and see how far we could get."

"Karl was an awesome help," he added. "It was a little turn around from last year where Nathan (O'Neill) and I helped Karl ride to a bronze medal. It's awesome to have a teammate of his calibre throw down for you, especially when he's also one of your good mates."

The early laps of the race were marked by a series of attacks before a ten-man break established itself four laps in and began to extend the gap to over six minutes on the splintering main bunch. At the mid-point of the race, Simon Gerrans (Credit Agricole) and Baden Cooke (Barloworld) got things organized in the bunch and set about bringing down the gap.

With the gap slowly coming down, the break was starting to break. With five laps left, it was down to five, but the gap was still around three minutes. At this point, Lloyd decided it was time to animate the race, putting in an attack and taking Cooke and Trent Lowe (Slipstream) with him. Hansen closed the gap, but in the confusion of the catch, Lloyd was able to continue on ahead solo.

With three to go, Lloyd was within two minutes, and by the time he had reached the top of Mt. Buninyong, the gap was down to half a minute, with Sutherland's group a little over a minute behind Lloyd.

Lloyd reached the two remaining riders from the break with two laps to go, and at the start of the bell lap, he held a gap of 1:08 over Sutherland and Hansen. The duo put in a huge effort to close the gap, but Lloyd was up to the task, losing less than 20 seconds over the last 10 km to hold on for the win.

Sutherland says the two strong results at nationals are reason for optimism, but there's still work to be done.

"(The time trial) Thursday was an indication of some good form, but I don't think I'm there yet," he said. "It's not part of the plan to be on top of my game in January. However, when you have the national championships then, I think it's silly not to try and be going well. My season is planned pretty well. It looks like there will be some nice spots of downtime, which helps you perform at a high level more often, instead of roller coasting through the year."

Sutherland's first main action on U.S. soil will be the Amgen Tour of California, beginning February 17.