Johan Esteban Chaves is known as an excellent climber but struggles a lot in the time trials. He has worked a lot to improve in the discipline and today his progress was put on show in the Tour de Suisse TT.

Tony Martin (Omega Pharma – Quick-Step) won the Tour de Suisse stage seven individual time trial, increasing his lead in the general classification. The Time Trial World Champion covered the 24.5 kilometre course in 31’37 22” faster than Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Shimano) in second and 28” faster than Rui Costa (Lampre-Merida) in the third. Fabian Cancellara (Trek Factory Racing) who spent much of the afternoon in the hot seat after setting the early fast time finished in fourth place.

Cam Meyer was the top finisher for ORICA-GreenEDGE in the race against the clock. He slotted into 48th place at 2’26, one spot better and two seconds quicker than Sam Bewley. Esteban Chaves continues to show improvements in the time trial. The Colombian finished mid-pack in 60th place.

"We had wanted to look at today as a test for Cam Meyer," sports director Neil Stephens said. "Unfortunately, we have a bit of a throat thing going around over the last couple day. Cam is one of the riders impacted. In part because of this throat thing, we only wanted two guys to go full gas today – Cam and Chaves. Cam tried but he wasn’t on top of his game. He’s not feeling fantastic, and you could see that in his result.

"We’re really proud of the work that Esteban is doing. It might sound funny to hear me praising a guy that finished in 60th place, but every time he gets on his time trial bike, he gets a little bit better. He’s been working really hard and testing out a new position. We’re really happy with his progression.

"Esteban is probably never going to be fantastic in the time trial, but he’s a lot of qualities you would see in a general classification contender. His job will be to limit his losses in the time trial, and he’s doing that quite well. His attention to detail and the way he takes on some great advice from the different experts he’s working with has helped him evolve in this area. Our goal is to have him go to the Vuelta as a more complete bike rider, and we think we’re on track to do that. "