Kwiatkowski wins again at Volta ao Algarve

Michael Kwiatkowski (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) consolidated his lead at the Volta ao Algarve with victory in the time trial. The Polish rider beat Adriano Malori (Movistar) and teammate and world time trial champion Tony Martin with a time of 14:03.

After soloing to success on yesterday's lumpy stage, Kwiatkowski went out with victory in mind. He led Martin by three seconds at the intermediate checkpoint, before putting in another 10 seconds by the finish line.

"That was actually the first TT of the year. I thought I'd gone off a bit too fast when I got the mid-point," Kwiatkowski said at the finish. "The end was very technical and that bit was all about good cornering and then speeding up out of the corners. I had Tony's intermediate times, which helped me a lot. I'm really happy with that effort.

The short 13.6km Vila do Bispo to Sagres time trial was made even quicker by the large section of downhill, which began after less than a kilometre.

"You never really know how things are going to go in the first TT of the year. After seeing the course this morning, I can't really believe that I've ridden it so well. I'm quite good in TTs but not usually in such a high-speed TT. I think that's the fastest TT I've ever done."

Malori split Kwiatkowski and Martin, trailing the Pole by 11 seconds. His teammate Jonathan Castroviejo was expected to perform well on this stage, but he ended up losing more than a minute to Kwiatkowski before the finish. Alexander Geniez (FDJ.fr) put in a good performance to move himself into fourth position, although at 22 behind Costa, it will be a challenge for him to make it onto the podium.

Kwiatkowski now has a comfortable lead of 32 seconds over Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo), who finished in fourth, 20 seconds back. Rui Costa (Lampre-Merida) saw himself slip to third place in the general classification, just six seconds behind Contador.

Martin is likely to be disappointed with him yet, although the fast nature of the course would have made it difficult to put down his well renowned power.

While it looks like Kwiatkowski has it all wrapped up in the general classification, he will still have to take on tomorrow's summit finish to the Alto do Malhão to wrap up the overall victory.

"I've done the climb twice before and I know it pretty well," says Kwiatkowski. "We'll have to see what happens because I know that Contador and Rui Costa will be going for it right till the end of the race."

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