Bradley Wiggins wins the stage 4 of the Criterium du Dauphine 2012
Bradley Wiggins bagged an important victory during the Individual Time Trial stage 4 of the Criterium du Dauphine.
He completed the 53 kilometre stage in a quickest time of 1 hour, 3 minutes and 12 seconds and restricted his main rivals.
Tony Martin of Team Omega Pharma-QuickStep was looking good but the German had to settle for the second position after felling 34 seconds short of Wiggins.
Michael Rogers of Team Sky, Wilco Kelderman of Team Rabobank and Sylvain Chavanel of Team Omega Pharma-Quickstep finished at the third, the fourth and the fifth positions in the respective order.
The British was delighted after bagging his first stage victory at the French race and admired the support of his team-mates during the event.
He cited, "It was a solid time trial for everyone today, there was no way of bluffing it or fluking it".
“It's just nice to be out there in that discipline after all the training we've spent on the time trial bike over the winter and in the last few weeks”.
"To beat the world champion is a big thing as I've not finished ahead of Tony many times in the past”.
“I beat him at Algarve at the start of the season but that was by milliseconds so to do it by a clear margin this time is a huge satisfaction”.
Sylvain Chavanel and Bradley Wiggins win the first and the second split of the race with Tony Martin holding the second spot on both the occasions.
Wilco Kelderman of Team Rabobank, Luke Durbridge of Team Orica GreenEdge and Tejay Van Garderen of Team BMC were the top three young riders on the day.
Bradley has now extended his overall lead to 38 seconds after the stage 4 classifications.
Tony Martin of Team Omega Pharma-Quickstep is at the second spot with Michael Rogers of Team Sky and Cadel Evans of Team BMC occupying the third and the fourth positions in the respective positions.
Tony Gallopin of Team RadioShack-Nissan, Cadel Evans of Team BMC and Bradley Wiggins of Team Sky are the top three names after the stage 4 point’s classifications.
With three more stages to go, Wiggins is a definite favourite to claim an overall victory at the Criterium du Dauphine 2012.
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