They might be a 'pro tour' squad, but they only had 3 riders, Howard & Goss, pretty much 1st year on the squad.. & Rogers. They were never gunna be able to control anything with that group. The fact is the 'break' went 500mts into a 160km race in 38 deg heat...no-one expected it to stick (see meyer's comments). Sure, Fly V & garmin had riders in it, but apart from obviously deciding to have a rider in 'everything', it was more luck than good management ...& failure by the rest of the field to consider chasing. Columbia didn't chase at all...no-one in the bunch did anything until after half way & even then it was Loyd & a couple of domestic pro's that had a bit of a dig, nothing from Columbia. If Rogers wasn't content to let it go, parhaps he should have done somthing about it...Howard & Goss obviously couldn't, Goss nearly got dropped up the hill every lap.
To prove my point that they didn't chase, a young amateur shot out of the bunch at about lap 3, hoping to coax someone to come with him in an attempt to bridge....no-one did & it took them 40km to reel him in (& even then it was because he was 'stuffed' rather than an increase in the bunches pace). The upshot is, Rogers didn't want it enough to be bothered doing anything to influence the bunches behaviour. Rather than bad tactics, it was eveidence of 'acceptance' that without anyone assisting, once it got out to 7mins, (about halfway), it wasn't coming back. Pro riders are nothing if not pragmatic...no point killing yourself in that heat for no reward