June 8, 2008:  Philadelphia, PA… Like Big Brown at the Belmont Stakes on Saturday, Ina-Yoko Teutenberg came up short in her bid to sweep the Triple Crown. But unlike the heavily favored horse, Teutenberg had teammates to fall back on.

Teutenberg won the first two rounds of the Commerce Bank Triple Crown of Cycling in the Lehigh Valley and Reading, but settled for third in Sunday’s Philadelphia Liberty Classic. In her place, fellow High Road rider Chantal Beltman soloed out of a late-race, four-rider break to take the final leg win.

“We won as a team today,” said Beltman, who finished the 57.6-mile race in 2:28:52, six seconds ahead of Brooke Miller (Team Tibco) who won the bunch sprint for second. “When you have a strong sprinter like Ina on your team, you are always in a good position. We have six strong riders so we had a lot of cards to play.”

The endgame in the women’s four-lap race unfolded during the final trip up the famed Manayunk Wall. With the field already whittled away by the blistering heat that was nearing 90 degrees by the end of the race, High Road launched the three-pronged attack of Kim Anderson, Mara Abbott and Beltman.

Team Tibco’s Joanne Kiesanowski was the only non-High Road rider able to respond, and the foursome crested Manayunk’s precipitous 17-percent climb together, then rocketed downhill toward the finish line back on Philadelphia’s famed Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

From there, the High Road tactic was simple – take advantage of superior numbers to wear down the isolated rider. Anderson delivered the first blow, ramping up the speed as the riders dropped down Manayunk Avenue and onto Kelly Drive. Abbott took over from there, launching an attack that drew out Kiesanowski, who knew she either chased or watched the race disappear up the road.

Kiesanowski managed to hold Abbott’s wheel, but Beltman was still lurking, biding her time for the perfect moment to launch another High Road offensive.

“As soon as Joanne caught Mara, I went on my own just before Lemon Hill,” explained the Dutchwoman Beltman, alluding to the short climb that precedes the final run in to the finish. “From there I just gave it my all because I knew I had nothing to lose. If the field catches me, then we have Ina for the sprint. We had it under control all day. It was awesome.”

Kiesanowski couldn’t respond to the final sortie, getting scooped up by the main field and ending up seventh.

Meanwhile, Teutenberg missed out on her chance to post a second straight Triple Crown sweep, but got ample consolation from the team win.

“I would have been sad if my teammate didn’t win,” said Teutenberg, who won the Liberty Classic in 2005 and 2007. “But since High Road won, that’s all that matters. We wanted to win the race and that’s what we did.”

Teutenberg and company also grabbed the lion’s share of the women’s $27,200 prize purse, which included $5,000 for the overall series winner – a prize the German did win.