HTC Highroad's Tony Martin crushed the competition in China on Wednesday with a commanding lead and victory out of the stage one individual time trial.

"The TT was ridden on normal race bikes with no TT helmets or full wheels," said sport director, Allan Peiper, "But it was a fast course but with a strong tail wind out, a technical mid-section and a head wind back in for the eleven point three kilometers."

Alex Dowset of Sky set an early best time far under the next best with 11.57 before David Millar from Garmin blazed to an 11.50 time with over forty nine average and looked to have the race in the bag.

"Tony was confident and relaxed at the start, wearing his World TT Champion skinsuit for the first time. He started fast and just kept developing speed running through the final head wind kilometers with the speedometer nudging 60kph constantly."

Martin came in crushing the field with a time of 11.33 at just over 50kph average.

"A great start for HTC and with no bonifications on the road and an advantage over Millar of seventeen seconds the team will defend the red leaders jerseys with a strong team to back Tony Martin."

This is Martin's ninth win of the 2011 season, six of which being time trial victories. This marks the one hundred and nineteenth win for team HTC-Highroad in their final season.