Tony Martin wins Tour of Britain time trial

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Tony Martin (Etixx-QuickStep) took victory on in the time trial in Bristol on stage 7a of the Tour of Britain. Martin blasted around the 15-kilometre course in a time of 18:06, three seconds faster than Rohan Dennis (BMC) in second place.

It was the first time trial victory outside of the German championships for the former three-time world champion in the discipline since last year's Tour de Romandie.

"To be sincere, I wasn't expecting to go so fast, because it's been a hard week for us, but sometimes when you don’t expect a good performance you do even better," Martin said. "The world's best time trialists are here and to beat them so close to the World Championships in Qatar gives me a boost of morale and makes me really happy."

Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) took third place while Stephen Cummings (Dimension Data) posted the fourth fastest time to keep his position at the top of the overall standings with a road stage to come on Saturday afternoon before the finale in London on Sunday.

A damp and dreary start to the day awaited the riders as they set out for the first of two stages in Bristol. Heavy rain in the morning would mean slick roads, making an already difficult and technical course that much harder.

Emiel Wastyn (An Post Chain Reaction) was the first rider off the ramp but his time would soon be surpassed. Alex Dowsett (Movistar) set the early benchmark, completing the course in a brisk time of 18:41. He would be pushed close by Ryan Mullen (Cannondale-Drapac) but the Irishman fell short by just four seconds.

It looked like BMC's Taylor Phinney had the pace to unseat his former Trek-Livestrong teammate but the American fell afoul of the wet roads and hit the tarmac. Despite his excursion, Phinney was just five seconds behind Dowsett on the line and put himself into provisional third place.

In the end, Dowsett had an hour's wait in the hotseat before someone would better his time and when it happened the gap was substantial. Tony Martin found 35 seconds on the 15-kilometre route, a time that would be out of reach of the capabilities of most of the remaining riders. Martin could sit back and relax, and even started playing around with the two large Alpecin bottles that flanked the hotseat.

"The course was really nice, but the weather and the rain made it slippery and dangerous, especially as you had to fight for every second and give it your all in the corners," Martin said. "Fortunately, I did a good recon before the start and knew what were the tricky points of this route and how fast I could go."

The competition would pick up again as the general classification riders began rolling down the start ramp just before midday. Dennis pushed the German national champion extremely close, going just three seconds slower. Martin looked calm as ever only letting a brief smile play on his face when the cameras turned their attention to him.

Dumoulin would go a further two seconds slower than Dennis and as the penultimate rider would all but ensure Martin's victory. There was a brief wait for the final rider Cummings and while he never looked like threatening the stage win, the question remained how close could he keep himself to the likes of Dumoulin and Dennis who started the day less than a minute behind him in the overall standings.

Cummings put in a solid performance to lose just over 10 seconds and keep himself in control of the overall classification.

Saturday afternoon's road stage will be over the same course as the time trial.

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