Ryder Hesjedal was the deserving winner of the Giro d'Italia after snatching the pink jersey from leader Joaquim Rodriguez on the last stage, the Spaniard has said.
Rodriguez saw his previous 31-second lead over Hesjedal erased as he finished 47 seconds behind the Canadian on the final individual time trial on the streets of Milan.
It secured Hesjedal a 16-second victory in the general classification to become his country's first Giro winner and deny Rodriguez and his Russian Katusha team their maiden Grand Tour triumph.
"Every one of us did everything we could but Hesjedal was a little stronger than me," Rodriguez said on the Katusha website Sunday.
"The gap between us was minimal, but it's pointless to talk now about where I could have won [or] where I could have lost this race, if I could have changed something or not."
"That's cycling, every day is important here, every moment."
Despite losing out to Hesjedal, Rodriguez beat Britain's Mark Cavendish by one point to win the red jersey in the points classification.
Rodriguez, 33, joined Katusha in 2010 and won the eighth stage of the Tour de France that year.
In a racing career stretching back to 2001, he has also won the 2007 Spanish road race title, the mountains classification at the 2005 Vuelta a Espana and the La Fleche Wallonne race in Belgium in April 2012.
