Alex Dowsett retained his title at the British National Time Trial Championships after taking a dominant victory in Leicestershire.

The 23-year-old set a time of 1 hour 11 minutes 55 seconds to finish 2min 27sec ahead of Douglas Dewey (Terra Footware) after three laps of a demanding circuit.

Matt Clinton (MikeVaughan.co.uk), Rob Partridge (Endura Racing) and James Tucker (South Pennine RC) completed the top five, but none of them could get close to Dowsett.

Dowsett fully lived up to his billing of defending champion and big favourite, putting in a commanding display after being the last man to tackle the 55km course.

After the race Dowsett revealed that while his margin of victory was comfortable, conditions were far from easy out on the road.

"It was a fairly rough road and there was a pretty brutal climb in it as well. I had to go down to the little ring and the 25 sprocket," he said.

Champion

Dowsett added: "It's a massive responsibility to be the national champion so I hope can do it justice again next year."

A good crowd turned out to see Dowsett successfully defend his crown as the title stayed within Team Sky for a third successive year.

"There were always people dotted round the course. There were quite a few on the corners, and on the climb there was a good line of them cheering us on at the top, which was cool," he said.

"It was a nice event. At end there was someone giving out a free cup of tea - it's things like that which makes British time trialling what it is."

Dowsett was sidelined for a significant portion of the season after breaking his elbow in a crash at the Three Days of West Flanders but is pleased to be getting back on track.

He said: "After the big chunk of time I had off with the injury it's been a struggle but Plouay was good - I was able to a good job for Edvald (Boasson Hagen) - and hopefully I will have a good end to the season."