LIVIGNO, Italy – Corinth’s Adam Craig was in position to earn a top-10 finish at the 2005 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships here Sunday, but a flat tire on the final lap derailed those hopes and the Corinth resident had to settle for a 21st-place finish.

Running seventh most of the day and on his way to the first top-10 finish by an elite male American cross country rider since 1995, Craig had a flat tire with less than six-miles to go while in sixth position in the 27-mile race.

Despite the bad luck, the 24-year-old Craig was happy with his performance.

“I’m not super concerned with results, I’m more concerned with progress and I made some serious progress today,” Craig told USA Cycling. “I had a bad start and rode myself into the top five, so that’s fine with me.”

After a slow start, Craig found his groove and quickly improved his position.

“It definitely took me a while to get my legs rolling, but once I did, I was moving through people like crazy,” Craig said. “It would have been real nice to have better contact at the start and race from the front, but I’m learning. I could basically shift into a higher gear and pedal faster whenever I wanted, so that was nice.”

Throughout the day, Craig was just minutes off the pace of eventual winner and defending champion Julien Absalon of France, who won his second consecutive world title with a time of 2 hours, 7 minutes and 34 seconds.

Absalon finished 18 seconds ahead of second-place Christophe Sauser of Switzerland. Jose Antonio Hermida of Spain took the bronze, 54 seconds off the pace.

Even with the flat tire, Craig was the top U.S. finisher in the 97-rider field with a time of 2:16:20. Olympian Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski of Boulder, Colo., in 32nd place, Michael Broderick of Chilmark, Mass., (42nd), Carl Decker of Bend, Ore., (48th), and Todd Wells of Durango, Colo., (54th) rounded out the U.S. National Team’s performance.