In his biography on the Elevate-KHS Pro Cycling website, Samuel Bassetti lists his favourite quote as “No excuses, play like a champion.”
And after two days of just missing the top step of the podium at the Tour de Delta, the 28-year-old California native played like a champion to win Sunday’s White Spot Road Race. Bassetti just managed to edge Langlois Brown rider Kaler Marshall to take the victory and the valuable UCI points to go along with it.
With eight laps to go in the 12-lap, 155.46 kilometre race, Team Canada rider Jack Burke and Evan Burtnik of XSpeed United Continental broke away from the group. The two built the gap up to 50 seconds with 7.5 laps remaining, but that’s when Burtnik crashed and Burke found himself caught by the peloton with seven to go.
A strong group of seven riders broke away with 6.5 laps left before another seven caught up to them and the pack couldn’t bridge across – so with six to go and barring a catastrophe, it was clear who the top 15 riders would be.
“Travis McCabe, Pier-Andre Cote and I were all kind of at the back of the breakaway hanging out with each other,” said Bassetti. “The finish came up pretty fast, suddenly it was 200 metres to go and the guys up front hadn't started sprinting. I started my sprint, weaved through the rest of the group and just nipped a couple guys at the line."
The break had three riders from Floyd’s Pro Cycling, so it looked like they might pull out the win, but Bassetti had his teammate George Simpson with him putting in some work.
“It was super good to have George there, but it was kind of up to the Floyd's riders to make sure it was together for McCabe to sprint because he was definitely the favourite in the group,” he explained. “It was pretty cohesive for the most part, so we just rolled all day and closed it out there at the end."
For Marshall, it’s the Walla Walla, Washington native’s second straight runner-up spot in the White Spot Road Race.
“Normally I don't like bunch sprints but with a diminished group I figured if I could go within 400 metres I could get a gap and surprise them, so that's what I tried,” said the 33-year-old. “I could sense Bassetti coming up on my left side, I knew as long as I could get my bike in front of him, then maybe I could make it - but it was a little bit of a long shot in the end.”
In third was Florenz Knauer. The German national team member has had multiple podiums at BC Superweek over the years but remarkably had never finished in the top three in the Tsawwassen race until now.
