Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) put himself into the perfect position to defend last year's win in the Tour of Belgium by crushing the opposition in an extremely dominant time trial performance on the 3rd stage of the Tour of Belgium. Despite being one of only a few riders to ride in torrential, he beat 2nd-placed Tom Dumoulin (Argos-Shimano) by no less than 40 seconds on a short 15km course to move into the race lead.

Last year Tony Martin laid the foundations for his overall win in the Tour of Belgium by winning the race's time trial stage and today he set himself up for a repeat victory by doing exactly the same. Clad in his rainbow jersey, he was superior to all of his competitors and distanced the young Dutch talent Tom Dumoulin by no less than 40 seconds.

The German had a hard time last year where he was unable to reproduce the time trial efforts of the 2011 season but this year he is clearly back to his best. Today's win means that he has only been defeated in the discipline once this season and that was in the mountain prologue in the Tour de Romandie which was in no way suited to his characteristics.

That cannot be said of today's completely flat 15km course around Beveren and while the German had probably preferred a longer distance, the stage was long enough for him to severely distance his rivals. Most of the day's early starters had raced on dry roads and the roads also started to dry up for the later starters but not even a torrential downpour could avoid the German from beating his opposition in such a convincing manner.

Young Dutch time trial talent Dumoulin proved once again that he has made huge strides in his second year in the professional ranks and was the closest challenger to Martin and is now also second overall with the time gap once again being 40 seconds. Rusvelo once again proved that they have a number of strong time triallists in their ranks and Artem Ovechkin and Alexander Serov managed to finish 3rd and 4th while Radioshack's Ben Hermans somewhat surprisingly rounded out the top 5.

Omega Pharma-Quick Step proved that they take their home tour very seriously by placing no less than 4 riders in the top 10 as Belgian champion Kristof Vandewalle finished 6th, Tom Boonen 8th and Niki Terpstra 10th. Their dominance is even more impressive when it comes to the GC as the same four riders now occupy 4 of the 5 places in the top 5.

The BMC duo of Philippe Gilbert and Greg Van Avermaet had hoped to set themselves up for a good overall result and while the former limited his losses to 1.07, the stage was a disaster for the latter who lost no less than 1.50. On the other Manuel Quinziato had a good ride and is the second BMC rider in the overall top 10 besides Gilbert.

Many were curious to see the ride of Luis Leon Sanchez who is back in competition after Blanco lifted his suspension due to his alleged involvement in the Operacion Puerto. The Spaniard had a solid ride and remains in the overall top 10.

The stage was one of ups and downs for the Radioshack team. While Stijn Devolder finished just outside the top 10 to move into the overall 8th place, Andreas Klöden and Maxime Monfort both disappointed. The same certainly goes for quadruple world time trial champion Fabian Cancellara who was never expected to challenge Martin in his first race back from a mid-season break but his time loss of 1.58 was certainly more than most had predicted.

The Belgian national tour continues over the weekend with two hard stages in the Ardennes. While tomorrow's fourth stage is a rolling affair with a gradual uphill final kilometer, Sunday will be the day of the queen stage. With three ascents of the famous Col de la Redoute, the terrain is there to challenge Martin and there is little doubt that we will see world champion Philippe Gilbert attack his German rival on his home roads.

Result:

1. Tony Martin 17.42

2. Tom Dumoulin 18.22

3. Artem Ovechkin 18.25

4. Alexander Serov 18.28

5. Ben Hermans 18.28

6. Kristof Vandewalle 18.35

7. Damien Gaudin 18.38

8. Tom Boonen 18.42

9. William Clarke 18.42

10. Niki Terpstra 18.43

General classification:

1. Tony Martin 9.04.04

2. Tom Dumoulin +0.40

3. Tom Boonen +0.50

4. Kristof Vandewalle +0.53

5. Niki Terpstra +0.59

6. Philippe Gilbert +1.04

7. Manuel Quinziato +1.11

8. Stijn Devolder +1.11

9. Luis Leon Sanchez +1.16

10. Alexey Tsatevich +1.17