Taipei, Taiwan - Representatives of presenting sponsor Maxxis, in Taipei for the Taipei International Bicycle Show, got to see what thousands of fans and media have been seeing since the second day of the 2008 Tour of Taiwan: trips to the podium by John Murphy of the Health Net Pro Cycling Team Presented by Maxxis to collect the yellow and green jerseys of the race and points leader.

In Stage 7, a 58 km criterium at the foot of the Taipei Nan-Kang World Trade Center - the site of the massive trade show - Murphy and his teammates once again successfully defended his lead in the battle for the overall title of the tour, while also earning him some valuable points in the green jersey competition.

With last year's winner and former Health Net Presented by Maxxis teammate Shawn Milne (Team Type 1) just seven seconds behind coming into the day, and nine seconds of time bonuses on offer during intermediate sprints and another 10 seconds for the stage winner, the stage proved to be a tense one.

Some of that pressure was diffused when a break of five riders slipped off the front early. "We felt comfortable with the make-up of the break," said team directeur sportif Mike Tamayo. "The closest guy on GC in the group was 28 seconds back."

Still, the peloton, led by Health Net Presented by Maxxis, kept the break on a short leash, with the gap never growing beyond 20 seconds. But they still succeeded in scooping up the time bonuses and points allocated on the first two intermediate sprints. With just one of those remaining on the course, Team Type 1 took up responsibility for the chase and brought the break back with two laps to go before the third sprint.

Their efforts were rewarded when Milne took first in the sprint, with Murphy coming third, narrowing his gap to Murphy to just five seconds.

Not long after, a large crash delayed the race for several minutes while medical personnel attended to injured riders. The race was re-started with nine laps of the flat, 1.5 km circuit remaining. In the closing laps, numerous attacks tried to get some distance on the bunch but none succeeded. In one tense moment, Milne attacked with three laps to go, but was quickly corralled.

This set up a bunch sprint for the stage win, which was taken by Stage 1 winner Kam Po Wong (Hong Kong Cycling Team), with Murphy taking a close third behind Shinichi Fukushima (Team Meitan Hompo-GDR).

The third place gave Murphy a four-second time bonus that brought his overall lead back up to nine seconds over Milne. His lead in the points competition also grew to a solid 27 over Takashi Miyazawa (Team Meitan Hompo-GDR).

Only one stage remains in the race, a 60 km criterium in Taipei, which will, once again, be attended by representatives from Maxxis, whose headquarters is also on the course for the final stage. Everyone is optimistic they'll see another repeat of Murphy's dual podium presentations Sunday.