Millar wins De Panne time trial and overall

David Millar made no bones about the fact that he was coming to De Panne with an eye on the overall win, and on a sunny day on the Belgian coast, the Briton lived up to his own expectations by winning the final time trial with enough time to spare to claim the general classification.

The Garmin-Transitions veteran made a surprising proclamation in his post-race comments, hinting that he will be hoping to repeat his strong performance on Sunday at the Tour of Flanders.

"I wanted to come up here and give myself a real go, and I proved to myself that I can race on the roads in Flanders," Millar said. "I'd like to be up there on Sunday."

The victory was the first stage race win for Millar since he won the Tour de Picardie in 2003. The De Panne title follows up on a win a dozen years ago in the final time trial - one of Millar's first professional wins.

"It's been a long, time, a lot has happened since then. Twelve years ago, I was here as a naive young kid, now I'm an old pro. It's good to know we can get better with age."

Coming off a win in the final time trial of the Criterium International, Millar was a strong favourite, but made his bid on the first day when he made the front split into Oudenaarde.

"I knew it would be complicated to win here. I knew I would have to be up there every day, and it was made even more complicated by the epic weather.

"But I've always done well in bad weather, it's amazing what you can do when you're motivated. I'm strong right now, and bad weather doesn't bother you as much when you're going well."

The sun shines on De Panne

After a miserable rainy previous day where strong winds demolished the peloton, the sun finally shone on the KBC Driedaagse De Panne Koksijde. Riders enjoyed bright sunshine and brisk winds for the flat but technical 14.75km course.

The resurgent former under 23 champion Dominique Cornu (Skil-Shimano) set the fastest early time, clocking a 19:18 to topple Eric Berthou (Carmiooro - NGC).

The time would hold until former world time trial champion Bert Grabsch went four seconds quicker. Not long after, Garmin-Transition's Svein Tuft managed to top the German, knocking him out of the hot seat before he could even get comfortable.

Tuft, perhaps buoyed by the win of teammate Tyler Farrar in the morning, rocketed to a 19:08, a time would hold through much of the day as contender after contender tried and fell short.

Tuft's lead finally fell to the Dutch rouleur Lieuwe Westra (Vacansoleil) who became the first rider to crack the 19-minute mark with an 18:48 - a solid effort but one unlikely to make up his 2:23 deficit to overall leader Luca Paolini (Acqua e Sapone) or Ukrainian Andrey Grivko (Astana).

The prime contenders of the day, Grivko, Millar, Frédéric Amorison (Landbouwkrediet) and Paolini were on course at the same time, chasing the seconds which would separate them at the end of the day.

Millar was the first to come through, setting an 18:44 to knock Westra out of the lead, but was it enough to make up 12 seconds on Grivko?

Amorison fell well shy of the 20-minute mark, struggling through to the line at 20:12 and tumbling down the general classification standings. That left just two men: Grivko and Paolini, to threaten Millar's shot at the overall win.

Grivko came surprisingly far from expectations as the Ukrainian time trial champion, coming in 47 seconds behind Millar. He fell down the general classification ladder to second, but did a fair bit better than Paolini, who dropped down to third overall, 1:07 down on Millar's overall time.