Racing on home soil in the Tour of Britain, Sky Procycling’s Alex Dowsett sped to a superb time trial champion on today’s penultimate stage of the race. The national time trial champion blitzed the 8.8 kilometre London course to set a time of ten minutes 14 seconds, a mark rapid enough to beat race leader Lars Boom (Rabobank) by a full five seconds.
Boom, who won the prologue in both the Critérium du Dauphiné and the Tour of Qatar, extended his overall lead on his main rivals and looks almost certain to win the 2.1-ranked race this afternoon.
Many had tipped the double stage winner to make it three victories in the race against the clock, but Dowsett had more to give on the day and snagged the biggest success thus far of his career.
“Everything just clicked,” he smiled. “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.”
That good ride was enough to be a winning one, something which pleases him greatly. “It’s amazing; it’s one of those things I would hopefully tell my children in years to come. 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.”
Boom’s strength in the race makes Dowsett’s win all the most rewarding for him. “Today has really shown that I can mix it with the top guys and onwards and upwards hopefully,” he said.
The early best was set by former Swedish national champion Alex Wetterhall (Endura Racing), who had targeted the stage. This stood for twenty minutes but was then beaten by a rapid ten minutes 19 second time by Lieuwe Westra (Vacansoleil). Dowsett finished 17 minutes after that and grabbed the hot seat by going five seconds faster.
Sky Procycling team-mate Steve Cummings was also on a flyer and went second fastest at the second time split. He had started the stage fifth overall, but leapfrogged Linus Gerdeman (Leopard), Daniel Lloyd (Team Garmin - Cervelo) and Leopold Koenig (Team NetApp) with his ten minute 23 second time, moving up to second in the general classification.
As race leader, Boom set off last and threatened Dowsett’s time when he was just one second slower at the intermediate split. However the Briton had covered the latter part of the course faster and ended up with a comfortable winning margin of five seconds.
It was a big achievement for the rider who notched up his first pro win in August’s Tour du Poitou-Charentes, and has now beaten some of the top names in the sport in the Tour of Britain.
Boom also has plenty to celebrate, holding a cool 36 second lead over Cummings heading into the concluding 88.8 kilometre circuit race. Jan Barta (NetApp) and Gerdemann are the only other riders within a minute of the race lead, but need to make up 56 and 57 seconds respectively; a practically impossible task.
Dowsett said that Sky Procycling will continue to race aggressively until the end. “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.”