Barry takes his first win of the season in Missouri

Columbia's Michael Barry soloed to his first win of the season today, taking out Stage Four of the Tour of Missouri at the end of a dramatic and exciting day of racing.

Barry and his Columbia teammates began their offensive at the zero kilometer mark of the 156km stage from Lebanon to Rolla in an effort to go after the yellow jersey held by Christian Vandevelde of Garmin. Barry was the first to attack and the attacking continued all day putting Garmin on the defensive to protect their lead.

"That was our plan for the day," explained Barry. "We wanted to attack and try to isolate Christian [Vandevelde] so that we could try to take the overall race lead back."

"We have Michael Rogers and George Hincapie who are pretty high in the General Classification, so we wanted to put on an exciting race and see what we could do.

With 45km remaining in the race Team Columbia had Vandevelde isolated with only one teammate  to help him in a breakaway group of 25. Barry attacked and formed a new breakaway group of four. He attacked again with only Jeff Louder of BMC able to hold his wheel.

"With 15km to go I attacked Louder and went away," explained Barry. "I had good legs today and felt great all the way to the line." 

"The last year has been pretty tough," added Barry, "after getting pretty sick last year. But the team and my family has supported me a lot to get through it all. It definitely feels good to get back to the top level of racing again."

"I feel really strong right now. I've been working really hard for the team this year and that makes you strong. It was pretty emotional coming to the finish line today. It was a nice victory for me."

Columbia's Michael Rogers now sits 18 second behind Vandevelde in the General Classification with three days of racing remaining.

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