Stefan Bassett (Human Powered Health) came close to ending "a string of second places in important races" at the Vuelta a Andalucía Ruta del Sol on Wednesday.

The 26-year-old from Knoxville, Tennessee, was well-positioned as part of an eight-man breakaway in a stage that was a relentless climb to the finish in Iznájar.

But after passing Ander Okamika (Burgos-BH), who had fallen behind with 200 meters to go, Basset realized that Sport-Flanderen-Barroise's René Hergotts was closing the gap, and after the two clashed shoulder to shoulder, Hergotts moved ahead.

Bassett told a small group of reporters on the line that "there was no foul play" and that "the stronger player won today." But while he was pleased to be so close to victory, he could not help but regret another near-miss.

"The GC team wasn't very motivated because they didn't need to win the first stage, and we knew we had a chance of getting away with it," he explained.

"We started with almost zero kilometers to go and we were pretty attentive within the team. We were pretty attentive within the team. We had two guys with a lot of experience, Ben King and Chad Haga. I was able to key off of them and was able to break in pretty easily."

Basset was in good form, having already competed in the Valenciana stage race and three one-day races in Murcia and Andalusia this season. And as he said, the breakaway group was well organized, at one point building a lead of nearly 15 minutes and gradually reducing it with each passing kilometer.

"This is the modern thing: you feather for about 100 km and then you start riding. So it went pretty much according to plan," he recalled.

"It was pretty cooperative, and there was an attack on the last climb. It was a sprint race."

Basset and the rest of the breakaway group had a tough fight against two visibly stronger Sport-Flanderen-Barroise riders in the breakaway, Lindsey de Vilder and Hellegoetz.

However, Basset said that although he was still in the breakaway group on a 1km climb approaching a steep gradient near the finish, Helegotz was too strong for him.

"We bumped into each other and almost crashed. Fortunately, there was no harm or foul play," he insisted. 'He was definitely the strongest today.'

Bassett may have had a near-miss, but "it's a pretty big step in the process of trying to jump out here in Europe for three years.

He says his size is not the right type to be thinking about defending second place overall - "I'm a pretty big guy, and it's one thing to go up a hill in a breakaway group and another to go up a hill against GC riders" - but his move is a good one for Human Powered Health continues to have a great start to the year.

The Pro Conti team has already won a mountain prize at the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana with Ben King, and also took top honors at last week's Tour of Antalya.

"We've kind of established ourselves as a breakaway team. Injuries and illnesses have spread us a little thin, but that's our niche."

"We have a really fast car. We have a really good dynamic and we know what to do. The window of opportunity is very narrow in this high-level race.