ALEX Dowsett has celebrated the defence of his British Time Trial Championship with a call-up to Great Britain's squad for next month's UCI Road World Championships.
The former Glendene Cycling Club member, 23, has suffered an injury-plagued season and, as a result, narrowly missed out on selection for two of the biggest events of the season: the Olympic Games and the Tour of Spain.
But on Sunday the Team Sky rider finished more than two and a half minutes ahead of his nearest rival on the rural streets of Leicestershire and the next day received a call-up to the national time trial and road race squad for the World Championships which takes place in Limburg, Holland between September 15-23.
"A lot of the big hitters who were my main competitors didn't actually turn up," said the Great Baddow resident of his national victory.
"I've no idea why to be honest.
"Any other race I'd be disappointed not to have a proper race on my hands but I was racing to retain the national title, you race to retain the stripes for a year.
"The job now is to do those stripes justice, more justice than I've done them this year."
Dowsett described himself as 'reasonably pleased' with his time of 1.55.11 over the 34-mile course as he finished comfortably ahead of second placed Doug Dewey of Terra Footware team.
He said: "There's a nasty climb in it which was going to take away the average speed a fair bit but overall I think I had a reasonable ride and when you know it's a race where if everything goes my way I pretty much knew I would be set for the win and sometimes under those conditions it's difficult to pull absolutely everything out of yourself but I just got the job done.
"I was always the favourite for it but you never know what's going to happen you can always have a bad day you just don't know.
"It's nice having the national stripes on my back again. I'm well aware of the guys that weren't there: (Bradley) Wiggins, (David) Miller, (Chris) Froome. But yeah you can only beat who's there."
Now the Commonwealth Games silver medallist is looking to end a frustrating season on a high note. He flew to Canada on Monday ahead of two World Tour races in Quebec and Montreal and has further races in France before the World Championships and the season finale, the five-day Tour of Beijing in mid-October. "I just feel I've been chasing my tail all season and I've been trying to play catch up with everyone else. I'm just looking forward to a fresh start next year," he concluded.
