One of the biggest pre-race favorites Rohan Dennis made a good use of a parcours which suited him down to the ground to take silver in the Commonwealth Games ITT, but losing to Alex Dowsett (Movistar) had a bittersweet taste for the 24-year old Australian as it was fourth time this season when he narrowly missed on winning against the clock.

Dennis confirmed this season his brilliant time trial skills posting a string of very impressive and consistent performances in the Circuit de la Sarthe, Tour de Romandie, Tour of California and Tour de Suisse. In addition to this, the Garmin-Sharp rider proved his potential as a future grand tour contender with his breakthrough performance on the Tour of California queen stage, won in a commanding style, but still lacked a little bit of something extra to transform his solid performances against the clock into victories.

A history repeated itself in the Commonwealth Games individual time trial as Dennis was beaten by Dowsett by a 9-second margin on the 38.4 kilometer long course and admitted that despite feeling proud after finishing the race on a podium, the silver medal had a bittersweet taste for the 24-year old Australian.

"I’m feeling proud, but it’s bittersweet at the same time," said Dennis at the finish. "It’s not a bad result but to be second again, and it’s now four or five second places this year, it’s getting a bit annoying you could say. At the same time you have to take the positives out of it and it is still a second place at the Commonwealth Games, which is still a huge result.

"Four years on and I’m four places further, so hopefully by Rio I can be better."

"I was really happy with the course, it was a great course and it suited me perfectly but it just wasn’t my day… It was a bit of a shock when Alex came through and he was nine seconds up," said Dennis. "I felt pretty strong the whole way through. Obviously I had nothing left at the end but I think physically, my ability today, I rode it to perfection. I can take that as a positive."

"I was pulled out of Austria at the last minute and that sort of fired me up a little bit. I was a little bit annoyed about it and like Millar we put our head down to get the best result and second place was it."

Dennis will lead the Australian team in the road race this Sunday and will be one of the favourites to take gold.