Downers Grove, IL – Brooke Miller of Team TIBCO took 2nd in Sunday’s National Criterium Championship race in Downers Grove, IL, behind Tina Pic (Colavita/Sutter Home), who took her sixth national criterium championship.

“The finish sprint here is very unusual,” Miller said. “It doesn’t just reward pure speed. It’s a bit tactical, too. Today I got beat on experience. I made some tactical mistakes. There’s a reason why Tina has won this race so many times. There’s not a lot of shame in losing to her. But it’s still disappointing.”

Overall, the five-rider Team TIBCO squad rode what directeur sportif Jeff Corbett called perhaps one of the best, if not the best race of the season. “I told them afterward that they rode amazingly,” he said. “Everybody did their jobs.”

And as Miller noted, “we were going for it today.”

In fact, Miller got things going with the team’s first attack of the day early one. When she was brought back, Amber Rais countered and spent four laps alone off the front. When she was caught, Meredith Miller took her turn, spending eight laps off the front.

“We just kept launching bombs,” Brooke Miller said. The attacks also helped keep Miller, Lauren Tamayo and Katharine Carroll, winner of Saturday’s warm up race, fresh for the closing laps.

Carroll took advantage and put in another late attack in hopes of repeating her two-lap solo effort of Saturday evening en route to the win. But she was caught with a half-lap to go, setting up the tightly contested finish.

“In 2008, I won when Tina made a mistake in the sprint,” Brooke Miller said. “That was the first time in four tries I actually contested the sprint. Today was really only my second time sprinting for the win here. I’ll just learn from it and put it to use next year.”