It was a race that had everything - hope, excitement, drama - but in the end it was disappointment that was etched across the faces of all three of Bermuda's male cyclists in the Commonwealth Games road race.

After coping admirably with the huge step up in class, Steve Millington found the pace too tough on Saturday and was forced to call it a day.

Team-mate Geri Mewett was not given a choice in the matter - the Tennessee-based rider was thrown into a tree at 60 kilometres an hour trying to dodge a hopelessly out-of-his-depth Kenyan.

Then thirdly, and finally, the Island's number one cyclist Kris Hedges gave every last ounce of energy and stretched every sinew but being out on his own in a field which included seasoned Tour De France riders proved too difficult a task and he pulled out at two-thirds distance.

Although no one lasted the course, do not think for one minute that this was anything but a marvellous performance by the Islanders.

Until matters began to unravel, the trio had been working well with Mewett and Millington supporting designated rider Hedges and the team looking on course for an excellent finish.

However, the class of the Australian contingent was soon to tell, going from a comfortable pace along the picturesque 11.7 kilometre Rivington course, to one that put out the fires in the belly of many a rider.

Stuart O'Grady was the eventual winner, leading home compatriots Cadel Evans and Baden Cooke to a third Australian clean sweep of the cycling medals.

O'Grady won the 187.2 kilometre race after a gutsy breakaway from the leading group of riders on lap 13 of 16.

Earlier, the Australians had let four riders go it alone from lap three before reeling in their one-minute lead from the front of the pelaton within ten minutes at the end of lap ten.

Minutes later, O'Grady led a break and was joined by Canadian Eric Wohlberg, David George and Robert Hunter from South Africa, New Zealand's Glen Mitchell plus Evans and Cooke.

After a team talk with his colleagues, O'Grady made his great escape from the rest of the field and he was never really challenged from then on.

The Bermudian team were all spectators by this time and were left to reflect on what might have been.

"Kris was our designated rider and for two hours I was sat near him making sure he was OK," said Millington. "The Australians were on the front and the laps went from 19 minutes to 17 minutes and that was it. They just got quicker and quicker."

Millington said he had tried his utmost to stay with the group.

"The last thing I want to do is quit these races but when we come against competition like this, Tour de France guys, we are pretty much out on our own," he said. "I did a couple more laps because it was the Commonwealth and there were a lot of my friends around the course and I wanted to make sure I saw them and they saw me.

"I could have quit as soon as I was dropped because I was never going to get back on with six Australian guys powering along on the front but I wanted to soak up the atmosphere because it has been great."

Millington put things into perspective when he added: "I am disappointed Kris didn't finish because he is our rider but when you come up against these guys you have got to expect a kicking once in a while."

He then revealed that he was contemplating his international cycling future. "It's taught me that I am quitting at the right time," he said of his experience with a smile, before adding: "It's just so difficult to keep motivated in Bermuda. We only come up against competition like this once, maybe twice, a year and to actually train and get fit for an event like this is so difficult. I have other things on the horizon."

But pushed about whether Saturday had been his last ride in a Bermuda shirt, Millington said: "We will have to see. Never say never."

Mewett, meanwhile, was left cursing both his luck and a certain African rider.

"Coming down the descent there was Kris, a Kenyan guy and myself," he said. "I got into the corner and the Kenyan guy just locked up his wheels, just panicked, and I had nowhere to go. I just went straight into him and then into a tree going 60 kilometres an hour."

The impact broke Mewett's frame and his The impact broke Mewett's frame and shifters, destroyed his front wheel and cracked his helmet in half and proved so spectacular that the BBC showed it over and over on TV.

"Physically, I am alright," he said. "I bruised some ribs, they are a little sore right now, but it could have been a whole lot worse."

He said the thing that made him the angriest was that the accident was unnecessary.

"It is really annoying in that respect because I was in the front group and we had kind of settled into a good rhythm and I was starting to feel good," he said, before pulling no punches about the rider responsible for his mishap.

"People over-extend themselves and do silly things. It was one of those cases. I am kind of upset. It's 11 months of really hard work down the tubes in two seconds."

For Hedges, having to pull out slightly soured what was the pinnacle of his cycling career so far.

The Snow Valley rider is contemplating moving to Europe for a year and was looking for a good finish to really put himself on the cycling map. As it was, his performance both on Saturday and in the previous weekend's time trial certainly turned heads but the fact he did not see the finish ate away at him in the immediate aftermath.

"Anything could have happened early on with all the mayhem and we made it through all the chaos as best as we could," he said. "It was a very technical course and that made it hard to stay up front but we were doing a good job where we were. For a time the gaps weren't opening up and maybe if I had been up a little bit I could have been cruising around with that group right now.

"But I raced as long as I could. I didn't come to finish like that. But I stayed with them and there weren't many other small nation riders left so I am not super disappointed. At the same time I felt I could have had a better performance."

In the end it came down to pure brute strength and, minus the help of his team-mates, Hedges was unable to maintain his challenge.

"When we crested and I looked up and it (the pack) was splitting all over the place that was it," he said. "I just didn't have the zap that I wanted to on the hills. Mentally, I was strong, it just turned out to be a physical thing.

"The course was hard, you never really got a chance to totally rest, especially when the pace started to pick up. The hills themselves weren't so bad until the lap that the pace went up. The main aim was to finish in a good group and that didn't happen. In that aspect it is disappointing but I am not totally upset with my performance."