Alex Dowsett of Movistar and England has won the Gold medal in the men’s elite time trial in the Commonwealth Games despite heading into the closing kilometers with a 5 second deficit to Australian Rohan Dennis. Geraint Thomas rounded out the podium.

Dowsett flew round the 40km course in Glasgow in a time of 47:42, beating Rohan Dennis (Australia) by 9 seconds and Wales’ Geraint Thomas by 14 seconds. Defending champion David Millar could only manage 8th on the day, 2:14 behind Dowsett.

The TT battle was very close, with Svein Tuft setting an early benchmark that not one could pass, meaning the veteran Canadian was ahead of talents such as Millar, Jesse Sergent and Greenedge teammates Luke Durbridge and Michael Hepburn. However, his time was then beaten comfortably by Geraint Thomas, and Tuft would finish a respectable fourth in the end.

Dowsett was fastest at the first check, 3 seconds clear of Sergent and 4 ahead of Durbridge. The latter two faded, Dowsett maintained his pace, and Dennis and Thomas upped their game and made up their deficits so that they were much closer by the second check, trailing the Englishman by 7 and 10 seconds respectively.

Durbridge blew massively and was caught by Dowsett with about 12km of racing left, but Dowsett looked like he too was beginning to blow, as Dennis had the lead at the third check at 26.4km, Dowsett second by 5 and Thomas only 7 seconds down in third.

Heading into the final 5km, it was evident that while Dowsett was struggling, Dennis was in worse shape and he looked more rugged on the bike than his English rival. Thomas could clearly go no faster and he was the first to beat Tuft’s time, knocking 37 seconds off it.

Dennis was next home, but he was visibly struggling and went from leading Thomas by 10 seconds at the first check to beating Thomas by just 5 on the line.

Dowsett then showed that while he was struggling, it was he who had gauged his effort best on the day and completed a 14 second turnaround on Dennis in as many kilometers, going from 5 seconds down to 9 up on the young Australian, taking a Gold medal for England that would surely help ease his pain of not being selected four years ago in Delhi and not making this year’s Tour de France.