British time trial champ Dowsett prevails against the clock

Image 1 of 11

As the Battle of Britain was remembered in London with a moving fly-past by a lone Spitfire over Westminster Abbey the remaining 83 riders in the Tour of Britain took to their bikes for a battle against the clock. The final day of the Tour of Britain is split into two stages with a 5.5 mile time trial followed by a 10 lap crit on the same course which takes in the Embankment and Whitehall, passing Big Ben on the way.

After a week of trying Team Sky finally got a result as newly-crowned British time trial champion Alex Dowsett stormed round the course in a time of 10:14.73. Race leader Lars Boom (Rabobank) was second, five seconds behind, but the result of the short race against the clock did nothing to affect his commanding lead in the overall. Third place went to Lieuwe Westra of Vacansoleil-DCM.

Team Sky had a good day with three riders in the top five, but it was Steve Cummings who benefited the most by coming fourth in the time trial, nine seconds behind teammate Dowsett, but leaping from fifth to second overall. Sky's Geraint Thomas finished in fifth place.

The other big change in the general classification after the time trial was Daniel Lloyd (Garmin-Cervelo) who dropped from third overall to tenth after a relatively poor time trial.

After his victory the 22-year-old from Essex said, "Everything just clicked. I recceed the course twice and even when I got up this morning I knew that my legs weren’t going to feel as bad as they had done the last few days. It’s been a hard tour for all of us, always trying to put Lars Boom on the back foot so we’ve been attacking all the time and it takes it out of you. Yesterday was a slightly easier stage, being flat and quite controlled gave my legs a chance to come round. Once I got going I knew my legs were good and I could do a good ride."

"It’s amazing; it’s one of those things I would hopefully tell my children in years to come," said Dowsett. "It’s going to take a while to sink in. London has been pretty kind to me, it’s amazing. This means a lot to the team. Especially to be in London and pull off a stage win.

"We can leave this stage with our heads held high because we’ve thrown everything at Lars Boom. We’ve got a strong team here but hats off to the guy. He’s even taken us on himself at time without his team which shows what a rider he is and a true deserved winner of this Tour. We have all done pretty much everything we could to get one over on him."

Still wearing his white skinsuit with red and blue stripes of British time trial champion, the likeable talent Dowsett finished by saying,"Today has really shown that I can mix it with the top guys and onwards and upwards hopefully. This afternoon will go pretty much the same as every race. We’ll attack it. Mark Cavendish will be tough to beat on the sprint so we might have to work around that somehow."