Confusion for this man at the Tour of California when he sprinted in for the win, or so he thought, with euphoric celebrations but there was still in lap remaining of the finishing circuit.
Spare a thought for Eloy Teruel (Jamis-Hagens Berman) in the video below. He enjoyed a very good ride on the penultimate stage of the Tour of California only to ruin his chances of a strong result and leave the stage pretty embarrassed.
The Spanish rider got clear in the early breakaway on the tough 146.5km stage from Santa Clarita to Pasadena.
While the move had just seconds of an advantage entering the 5km finishing circuit, the peloton that caught them was very much depleted. It meant those in the breakaway still had a decent chance of a result if they had anything left in the tank.
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And to his great credit, Teruel clearly did.
He attacked in the closing couple of hundred metres trying to take advantage of being first into the tricky bends thrown into the finale. And his plan worked.
He opened a small gap on the field and sailed over the line, punching the air with both hands, barely able to contain his joy.
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The trouble was that the race wasn’t at the finish; it was passing through the finish line to go out onto the final 5km lap, with the unfortunate Teruel having clearly fluffed his lines.
He was reabsorbed just after the finish line and when the race came around next time for the closing sprint, it was the green jersey of Peter Sagan (Cannondale) who was victorious. Poor Teruel came home at the back of the 39-man lead group.
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