HTC-Columbia’s Tony Martin used his time trial strength to the confirm overall victory in the Eneco Tour on Tuesday  as he surged an emphatic win in the race’s last individual time trial in Genk, Belgium.

Already the fastest at the time trial’s intermediate checkpoint, Martin finally came close to averaging 50 kilometres an hour on the short but very technical course, which he completed with a time of 20 minutes and 24 seconds.

The HTC-Columbia rider  finished six seconds ahead of Dutchman Maarten Tjallingii on the stage and increased his overall advantage on second-placed Koos Moerenout of Holland to 31 seconds.

“Winning the last time trial is a truly perfect way of ending the race, and it will keep me really motivated for the final part of the year,” Martin said. “It’s a great feeling to have taken such an important win, and I’m now on track for my next few targets.”

“I’ll ease back a little bit now, and then start my final build-up for the World Championships Time Trial in Australia with a ride in the Tour of Britain. I can’t say what will happen in the World Championships, and it’ll be hard to beat [defending champion] Fabian Cancellara, but I’ve been working hard on my time trialling and we’ll see how it goes.”

“What impressed me the most about Tony was how he turned around after the Tour de France and came back to do so well here,” added HTC-Columbia sports director Brian Holm. “We talked about his ambitions and didn’t know whether he would be so good, but once he got in the break where he took the lead, we knew he had a chance. However, for sure we didn’t take anything for granted.”

“One stage went over part of the Amstel Gold race course, another used part of Fleche Wallone and then today we knew Moerenhout is a strong time triallist so we went all out  right to the very end.”

The Eneco Tour is Martin’s first overall win in a ProTour course and his fifth of the 2010 season.