Ruben Zepuntke (Bissell) surprised the entire cycling world when he won yesterday's stage of the Tour of Alberta after having beaten Ramunas Navardauskas in a photo finish. The sprint was so close that the young German actually thought that he had only been second.

In the recent USA Pro Challenge, many noticed the name of Ruben Zepuntke as a rider to watch for the future as the young German rode strongly in the mountains and in breakaways. Today he put his name right near the top of the list of big talents when he beat the WorldTour riders in the first stage of the Tour of Alberta.

On a very wet day in Canada, a small 30-rider group arrived at the finish after a tough climb in the finale had split the peloton to pieces. Passing the flamme rouge, the Hincapie team brought Zepuntke’s teammate Daniel Eaton back and this was the signal for the German to kick into action.

His teammate James Oram passed the Hincapie riders and led Zepunkte through the final turns. Hitting the short finishing straight, he put down the hammer and seemed to be riding towards a comfortable win.

Having been out of position, Ramunas Navardauskas produced an amazing sprint and passed several rider before moving up alongside the fading German. The Lithuanian was a lot faster than everybody else but just ran out of metres and had to settle for second, with Ryan Anderson completing the podium.

"Actually I thought I was second, because Navardauskas came with such speed up to the finish," Zepuntke said. "He took over, and I was like, 'Oh, that was close.' But then I saw all of the cameramen and the guys come up to me, so I thought, 'OK, I am the winner of today.' So I'm very proud. All of my teammates, too, did a good job. It's very nice.

"Of course this was one of the biggest wins of this year but also my career. It was a very hard day, and I think the rain was one of the reasons it was so hard. And it was cold. I'm very good in rainy days and cold days, so I thought it could be a good day for me.

“This is the biggest win of my career, for sure. The Tour of Alberta is a big race. We’re racing against some of the biggest teams in the world, so, to win is great.”