Tony Martin delighted on successfully defending the Time Trial title
After securing the gold medal at the Team Time Trial events, defending his Elite Men Individual Time Trial title was the biggest challenge for Tony Martin.
The German was on fire during the 45.7 kilometre course and never gave his challengers even the slightest of a chance to secure the top podium position.
Taylor Phinney however, took a four second lead after the first time check (14.3 kilometres) but Martin was quick enough to take the revenge as he took a 13.26 second lead over his American Competitor after the second time check (27.9 kilometres).
Phinney minimised the lead to 8.86 seconds after the third time check (38.4 kilometres) and both the strong podium contenders were tested at the first climb of the race.
A proven climber, Tony had a clear edge at the climb and took the most out of his tremendous form restricting Taylor for the second position.
The American could not claim any better than the second overall position with a deficit of over 5 seconds on his German competitor.
Vasil Kiryienka of Team Belarus secured the third spot with Tejay Van Garderen of USA and Fredrik Carl Wilhelm of Team Sweden occupying the fourth and the fifth positions in the respective order.
"I think Taylor did a perfect ride today and it was really hard," Martin said.
"For sure, I didn't expect it would be so hard, but I did everything 110% and I was totally dead at the end. The final, especially, was one of the hardest ever in my career".
"After a year with so may ups and downs and bad luck, there was just one way to make the season good and that was by taking the title today," Martin said.
"After breaking my hand on the first stage in the Tour de France it was pretty hard to get ready for the Olympics, but I handled that situation well".
Martin was part of the strong Team Omega Pharma-Quickstep team that won the Team Time Trial event on Saturday.
Tom Boonen led the team consisting of Sylvain Chavanel, Niki Terpstra, Kristof Vandewalle, Peter Velits and Sylvain Chavanel and Tony Martin that occupied
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