Tyler Butterfield passed the chequered flag in 33rd position on Saturday — but the fact he was less than a second behind the winner tells its own race story.

So close was the Pan-Am men’s road race it took officials an age to decipher its finishing order, with 32 riders placed between Wendy Cruz’s winning time of three hours, 38 minutes and 50 secondsand Renato Seabra’s 3.38.56 in 34th.

Bermuda’s number one was even displayed as third on the giant screen when the bell rang to signal the last loop of Flamengo Park, emphasising the bottleneck nature of this tightly fought contest.

But as the competition descended into a sprint finish, Butterfield’s main chink in his racing armour was cruelly exposed to ensure (on paper at least) his position appeared less than impressive.

“Being a sprinter made all the difference in this race. I’m not a good sprinter — my girlfriend can beat me,” said the 24-year-old who is engaged to world-class cyclist Nikki Egyed.

“When Cruz accelerated I tried to get on his wheels but he just left me for dust. That left me caught in the headwind and I had to pull back into the pack. “But I’m very happy with my race as with two laps left I didn’t think I would still be there at the end.

“It was one of the hardest races I’ve done this year because it’s so different from the professional races I’m used to — it was stop start throughout.”

Surprisingly, it was not the Colombians or Brazilians — who Butterfield had earmarked as favourites in the 156km race — but a Domincan and Trinidian who stole a march on the much-fancied South Americans for a one-two finish.

But while the thousands of spectators who lined the streets of Flamengo Park may have been flabbergasted the top ten featured only one Brazilian and a complete absence of Colombians, Butterfield said he was well aware of the sprint skills of Wendy Cruz from previous duels.

“When it comes down to a bunch sprint I struggle. It was the same scenario at the Pan-Am qualifiers at the Caribbean Championships.

“Wendy Cruz won the bunch sprint for second place that day and now he has won this race — he is a born sprinter.

“I was trying to watch the Brazilian, Venezuelan, Colombian, Argentinean and Canadian teams. They all had a great motivation to win and had full strength teams competing.

“The first four laps were a little crazy with riders launching a series of attacks to create ten or twenty second gaps — that’s when you get nervous as a lone rider.”

Pembroke-born Butterfield, who gained Pan-Am entry via a wildcard, has had his debut season with Team Slipstream plagued with fatigue problems caused by a parasite picked up drinking dirty water.

It has put his professional career in jeopardy after a series of disjointed displays and he knows he must have an improved second-half of the season to secure a ride next year.

“It’s nice to do a race before I go back to Slipstream, where I need to improve after a difficult start to my first season,” said former triathlete Butterfield who had not raced for six weeks prior to Pan-Am.

“In a perfect scenario I would’ve liked to have done a race before this one but it would’ve meant a lot of travel so I decided to train in Bermuda.

“I’m happy with the race and I felt quite strong and hopefully I’ll recover quite quickly.

“In terms of pure effort this was a very hard race but I should be back in action in Spain later this week.

“This was my first Pan-Am Games as I didn’t compete in it when I was a triathlete and Brazil is pretty awesome place to come.”