An officiating error and a late-race crash combined to shake up the men’s standings in the Nature Valley Grand Prix on Friday.

Shawn Milne (Navigators Insurance) won the Minneapolis Downtown Classic and collected the leader’s jersey after a lap counter that read 2 for two laps gave him an unexpected edge over a small lead group confused about just when stage 3 of the NVGP was supposed to end.

Milne sprinted for the line when the lap counter should have read 0, but his sprint turned into an attack when race officials began ringing the bell signaling the final lap.

“I went for it, but I didn’t see anyone jump with me,” Milne said. “I have seen too many times riders sprinting for what they think is the last lap and lose it.”

Instead of throwing up his hands and claiming victory, Milne continued through the finish line and into the official final lap, as Jelly Belly-PoolGel’s Dave McCook and Danny Pate, with Frank Pipp (Advantage Benefits-Endeavor) and Jonathan Page (Colavita Olive Oil-Sutter Home), suddenly found themselves chasing.

McCook, who found himself settling for second place after winning here last year, was not at all happy about the outcome.

“I am pretty confident that I would have won,” McCook said. “It’s just frustrating when things that aren’t in your control don’t go right. There’s no way he would have won if they had counted correctly.”

Officials had no comment about the mistake.

The finale was not the first thing to go wrong for Jelly Belly coming into the last laps. The team was lining up to deliver McCook to a repeat victory, bringing five riders together in the last four laps, with Pate pushing the pace. As a solo rider, Matt Dubberley (McGuire), dangled just seconds in front, a showdown loomed between Jelly Belly and a surging Health Net-Maxxis squad trying to form its own train.

But as Dubberley pedaled through the first turn with three laps to go, he dug a pedal into the tarmac, catapulting himself across the street and into the barriers. The upshot, according to Milne, who was sitting behind the Jelly Belly train, was a mad dash as Jelly Belly and Health Net tried to find a line around the crash.

“It screwed up everything,” McCook said.

As the Jelly Belly train hit the brakes, riders behind shot forward. The ensuing pileup claimed, among others, a trio of Health Nets - GC leader John Lieswyn, downtown sprint leader Tyler Farrar, and Gord Fraser – and the damage was significant. Farrar would not finish the race; Lieswyn saw his leader’s jersey slip away as he chased the lead group that escaped the pileup; and McCook’s sprint train was derailed.

Afterward, Lieswyn had no words of praise for Milne.

“It was hard to lose the lead that way,” he said. “If I was Shawn Milne, I wouldn’t want to get the lead that way. Evidently, Shawn has no respect for the jersey.”

Milne conceded that the crash contributed to his victory. Still, he said he was not attacking the race leader while he was down, but simply following the wheels of the riders ahead of him who continued to move ahead with the race.

“I wasn’t going for time,” said Milne, who was down 17 seconds to Lieswyn at the start of the race but finished more than 20 seconds ahead of him and earned bonus time for the win. “If I could, I would have waited.”

He made no apologies for winning and taking the leader’s jersey, though.

“I’ll take a win this way,” he said without any emphasis or elation. “I wouldn’t have preferred it this way, though. I had some friends go down in the wreck.”

Navigators director Ray Cipollini also came to Milne’s defense. “None of our riders would take advantage of the race leader going down,” he said. “It’s just the way the race turned out.”

Even Health Net’s director Jeff Corbett conceded that in a criterium, it is hard for a rider near the front to know what is happening behind him, especially in the last few laps. “It’s a lot easier to do that in a road race,” he said.

More of a concern for Health Net was the condition of Farrar, who began the day as the top sprinter and top under-23 rider and finished with neither jersey and scratches and bruises. Team officials said later that he would be able to continue in Saturday’s stage, the Red Wing Road Race in Red Wing.

Thorburn holds lead despite spill

A midrace crash took down the women’s race leader, too, but Christine Thorburn (Webcor Builders) managed to hold onto her jersey as Ina Yoko Teutenberg (T-Mobile) sprinted to the stage win, repeating her victory of two years ago.

Teutenberg outkicks the bunch

Photo: Matthew Moses

Thorburn went running for the pits when her bike got the worst of it in a pileup that took out a third of the field.

“I thought I was going to have to get a bike change. I couldn’t roll my bike,” she said. “They straightened out my bars. Felicia [Greer] gave me her wheel.”

Webcor played defense on Friday as T-Mobile went on the attack, stringing out the field on the six-turn course, which was dampened by afternoon rain.

“It was a fast race from the start,” said Victory Brewing’s Rochelle Gillmore, who took second despite going down with Thorburn and the others and needing a wheel change. “I wasn’t ready for the intensity. I didn’t warm up enough beforehand. I suffered most of the race.”

“We were on the defensive today,” said Thorburn. “We worked pretty hard on the front.”

Added Quark’s Laura Van Gilder, “It was a pretty technical course, and you’ve got to stay up front to make sure you’re not caught unaware.”

No one would catch T-Mobile and Teutenberg unaware. The German sprinter sailed solo across the line, her two-armed, palms-up salute seeming to say, “Hey, was the outcome ever in doubt?”

“Ina rode a really good race,” said Magen Long (The Bicycle Store). “Kori Seehafer (T-Mobile) was doing a good job blocking.”

Teutenberg said it was all teamwork. “I got a good lead-out from my team,” she said. “It’s good to have a stage win. Now everybody can relax.”

That’s not likely with a 94-mile road race in rolling Red Wing on Saturday and a 50-minute crit in historic Stillwater that includes the 20-percent grade up Chilakoot Hill. Thorburn has just 36 seconds over Van Gilder, who racked up enough time bonuses to leapfrog over Seehafer and Kim Baldwin (T-Mobile).

“There’s two more hard days of racing,” said Van Gilder. “We’re not here to roll over either.”