Maciej Paterski got agonizingly close to his first ever win in a major professional race when he was beaten into second by Marc de Maar in a photo finish on the second stage of the Tour of Norway. Having found himself in similar positions in the past, the Pole regretted always making the same mistake of waiting too long before launching his sprint.

After several years working as a domestique at the Liquigas/Cannondale team, Maciej Paterski has taken a step down by joining the CCC Polsat team. At the professional continental level, he is now one of the team leaders and expected to deliver results.

Paterski already got close to a very big win in the final stage of the Volta a Catalunya where he made the race-winning break but was unable to keep up with an outstanding Lieuwe Westra in the finale, ultimately settling for fourth. Yesterday he again found himself in the position of having made the right breakaway and again he came up short.

Sensing a moment of hesitation after an unsuccessful attack in the crosswinds, he took off with Marc de Maar 30km from the finish and the pair worked excellently together to stay away from both an 11-rider chase group and the peloton. With De Maar riding for GC, the UnitedHealthCare rider did most of the work inside the final two kilometres and the odds were on Paterski to take the win, the Pole usually being the fastest sprinter of the pair.

However, De Maar provd to be impressively strong when he launched his sprint from the front and even though Paterski got close in the end he ran out of ground and had to settle for second. Afterwards, he regretted doing the same mistake as he has often done in the past.

"I made the wrong decisions in the finale," he said. "I waited too long before I launched my sprint. It is not the first time in my career that I make this mistake but as you can see I have not learnt anything. Overall I am still happy with my performance in the race and in the coming days I should be good."

"The second stage was very successful," sports director Piotr Wadecki said. "We had the impressive Adrian Kurek in the break all day and in the finale we had other riders to take over. I have special praise for Maciej Paterski who managed to attack from the peloton with one of the UnitedHealthCare riders at a difficult point.

"It is definitely a good result and generally the whole team has a great attitude but I must admit that I am a bit disappointed because we were so close to the victory. So far Maciej had mainly worked for others and he needs to learn how to win. Hopefullt today's lesso will have a positive effect because I think he will more often find himself in a situation like he did today."