Tour of Britain: Dowsett praises escape after taking yellow

Image 1 of 3

Alex Dowsett (Movistar) could hardly have imagined that he would be donning the yellow jersey at the Tour of Britain when he rolled out of Bath for stage 6 on Friday morning. That morning Dowsett wasn’t even in the top 20, sitting 1:25 behind race leader Michal Kwiatkowski (Omega Pharma-QuickStep), now he leads the Polish rider by 34 seconds.

“I thought it would be a simple go out and QuickStep would bring us back,” said Dowsett. “I was really buckling in last 5km, I was relying quite heavily on Matthias, and Tom as well. The time point is taken on point of peloton crossing the line – there was a good chance they would have closed the gap.

“Before the Commonwealths, and after the Tour, I was doubting myself a lot. So this is more proof to me that I'm able to compete at this level. Nothing's changed, you have lull, you doubt yourself and you wonder if you can still cut it anymore. But I've proved today I'm able to compete at this level.”