Alex Dowsett still feeling Tour de France pain but takes comfort in Commonwealth gold

Four months on and Alex Dowsett’s emotional wounds are yet to fully heal.

This summer’s Tour de France was potentially his only chance to ride the world’s biggest cycle race on home roads and there is an unmistakable frustration in his voice as he recounts the chain of events that led to him missing out.

“Everything was going according to plan up until the Tour de Suisse,” he says. “I picked up a cold on the first day. In hindsight I probably should have pulled out then, recovered quickly and made sure I was fine for the Tour de France, but I thought, 'If I pull out the team is probably not going to take me to the Tour'.”

It was a fatal choice. The cold spread to his chest and developed into a bout of bronchitis that would leave him in “a bit of a mess” for "a good two months".

With the Tour starting with three days in England, his Spanish team, Movistar, had been keen to select him in their nine-man squad, but given they had ambitions to challenge in the general classification with Alejandro Valverde, there was no room for an incapacitated rider.

“I never held it against my team,” Dowsett, 26, adds. “If I was team boss I wouldn’t have taken me given the state I was in. But it was still a hammer blow. It was a weird morning when I woke up to a message from the boss explaining his reasons for not taking me.

“I just went straight out on my bike. There was nowhere I wanted to be more than out on my bike on my own. I actually bumped into Cav [Mark Cavendish] and Tao [Geoghegan Hart], who had both read Twitter in the morning and had seen the Movistar line-up, and they both gave me a hug, which was nice.”

But the ordeal of missing out on the Tour was far from over. He still had to endure the race’s English stages, the third of which passed within three miles of his house in Essex.

The race was all over the papers, all over the media – you couldn’t get away from it.

“It was a pretty horrible day for the whole family,” Dowsett explains. “My dad went to watch it, but in hindsight, he probably wishes he hadn’t.

“I went to the British Grand Prix on the Saturday and the Sunday. That meant I could stay away from the Tour, but I couldn’t avoid it on the Monday. The race was all over the papers, all over the media – you couldn’t get away from it. I ended up going around to my mate’s house and looked at cars.”

Out of adversity Dowsett sought opportunity, and fuelled by the bitterness of missing out on the Tour, he refocused on new goals.

First up was the Commonwealth Games time trial, a race in which he had finished second behind David Millar in Delhi four years earlier and which he now returned to as one of the favourites for gold.

He was five seconds down on the fastest man on course, Australia’s Rohan Dennis, with 6km to go, but rallied brilliantly in the final sector to claim a memorable win.

“That was one of my career highlights, right there,” he proudly proclaims. “When I got the negative split I was wondering if my plan was starting to falter, but the last section suited me and I wanted to leave a bit of energy left in the tank for it, and it came good at the end."

With confidence and momentum now on his side, Dowsett headed to September’s Tour of Britain for a second chance to race in front of a passionate home crowd.

The Tour of Britain was an emotional roller coaster. I’m happy with what I achieved.

His hopes of challenging for overall honours appeared to evaporate when he lost almost a minute and a half on stage three’s summit finish on The Tumble, and he then suffered a further setback on stage four, when he had to drop out of a breakaway following two punctures in as many metres.

But frustration and anger once again proved to be Dowsett’s friends, as that cruel twist of fate motivated him to join another breakaway two days later and claim the race lead by finishing second on the stage. More disappointment laid in wait, though, because he lost the yellow jersey after his inability to climb was ruthlessly exposed on a hilly and attritional seventh stage into Brighton.

“The Tour of Britain was an emotional rollercoaster,” he says. “I’m happy with what I achieved at that race. I was obviously disappointed not to be able to hold on to the yellow jersey and I still stay up at night thinking about what I could have done differently.

"Unfortunately I had given so much getting the yellow jersey that the following day, I needed a nice flat sprint day, but it was far from that. But what it has given me is a lot of confidence. I know I need to work on my climbing, but it has given me the belief that I can win those kinds of races.”

Dowsett received a further boost at the Tour of Britain when he signed a new three-year contract with Movistar, extending his stay with 2014’s No 1-ranked team to five seasons.

“It’s quite unprecedented in cycling to have a three-year contract,” he explains. “I was quite adamant that I wanted three years because, firstly, I was happy at Movistar and didn’t want to go anywhere else, and secondly, I perform well when I’m not under pressure to perform.”

With his future secured, Dowsett is now looking firmly towards 2015 and, not surprisingly, the Tour de France is his key target. Next year’s route contains a 14km individual time trial and, crucially, a 28km team time trial in which Dowsett could make a significant contribution.

“The Tour de France is my main goal, to get in the team and help the team,” he adds. "I’m starting to get a bit older now and I want to be one of those riders, like Geraint Thomas, who is consistently an integral part of the Tour de France squad.

“It’s a pity there isn’t a long time trial in next year's Tour, but it’s a route where my team will require riders like myself and [Adriano] Malori to ensure we are competitive in the team time trial.

“The other goal is winning races like the Tour of Britain. Hopefully it will be a good year.”

Alex Dowsett was speaking at an event to promote his cycling holiday company, YBT - Your Bike Travel - yourbiketravel.com