Dowsett dominates Sarthe time trial

In sunny conditions, Movistar's Alex Dowsett outclassed Rohan Dennis of Garmin-Sharp and the rest of the field to beat by eight seconds the record previously set by Daniele Bennati in 2011 on the 6.8km long individual time trial in the streets of Angers.

"This is a very nice win", Dowsett told Cyclingnews. "This is the race I've been targeting for a while. It has a TT and I like TTs. I had a plan and I stuck to it. It was a nice course, quite technical… It was also an opportunity for me to win a stage race overall. Dennis and Stephen Cummings were the two riders I marked out. I'm glad to win in such a high leveled field of time triallists."

Dennis was happy to hear that his time bettered the ones of his compatriot Luke Durbridge, who won this time trial in the past two years in 8.15 and 8.18. The South Australian claimed his second runner up position in a time trial in what is his second race of the season in Europe this year after the Criterium International. He is only five seconds down on Dowsett on GC, and Garmin-Sharp has two cards to play in the hills of the last two stages with Ramunas Navardauskas laying in third place at seven seconds.

"I'm sure the French teams will put on a fight", Dowsett assumed, but he noticed that he received a very strong support from the crowd, which might have something to do with his past performances at the nearby Chrono des Nations that he won in the U23 category in 2010 and came third as a neo pro behind Tony Martin and Gustav Larsson in 2011.

"As my main focus was the time trial, I haven't looked at the profile of the last two stages", the Englishman added. "But I'm confident in my team's capacity of defending the lead."

Road captain José Ivan Gutierrez will play an important role on his side. For Dowsett, the Circuit de la Sarthe-Pays de la Loire is also a way to get accustomed to the French cycling environment ahead of his Tour de France debut scheduled in July this year.

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