Former under-23 time trial world champion Damien Howson has capped off the 2015 Tour de Pologne with a fourth place in the final time trial in Krakow today.

Howson rode the 25km course with a 50.167km average speed to stop the clock just one minute and nine seconds down on stage winner Marcin Bialoblocki’s (Poland) 28:45minutes.

“It was a really good ride by Damien,” sport director Matt Wilson said. “It was not a technical course at all, basically up and back, almost flat with only a bit of up and down.

“We were thinking a top five result would be a really good result, a top ten expected and anything after that a bad one. He has managed the better result which is great.”

Ion Izagirre (Movistar Team) posted the seventh fastest time on the final stage to steal the overall victory having entered the day sitting sixth on general classification standings.

Howson’s result gives ORICA-GreenEDGE their third top five result for the Tour, neo-pro sprinter Caleb Ewan also finishing second on stage one and fourth on stage four.

It was not the stage win the outfit set out for, but Wilson said there were positives to take out of the week’s racing in Poland.

“Sometimes it just doesn’t work out,” Wilson said. “The guys threw everything at those first four days, we couldn’t ask for anything more.

“If things had gone a little differently on a couple of occasions we could have finished with one or two stage wins but it didn’t happen.

“No excuses, but we definitely come out of the Tour with positive thoughts and onto our next challenges.”