After stage 1: 13.8km time trial in Utrecht
UTRECHT: It was only a matter of time before Rohan Dennis pulled off a ride like the one he produced in the first stage of this year's Tour de France on Saturday.
Not only did he win, but in record speed to also take the yellow race leader's jersey.
Rohan has been second so many times in time trials since he turned professional in 2013, so a breakthrough win like his in the 13.8-kilometre race time trial in Utrecht was not that much of a surprise.
But boy ... it was an impressive performance, even if it initially demoralised me.
When I went through halfway and I was 22 seconds down already, I thought I was on a shocker, but then a lot of riders struggled so I wasn't that far off by finishing 1 minute, 6 seconds down ... at least compared to the general classification guys like Rohan's leader at BMC, the American Tejay Van Garderen, who was at 42s, or the Italian defending champion Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) at 43s, our ace in the deck, Briton Chris Froome (Sky) at 50s, Spaniard Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) at 58s, and Colombian Nairo Quintana (Movistar) at 1:01s.
I am not the big, explosive power rider you needed to be for a course like Saturday's. That let me down, but then the heat played a big role. It was so hot. You couldn't breath, not properly anyhow.
When I heard that Rohan had trained specifically in the heat between 2pm-5pm in readiness for what Saturday dished out it all made sense – and good on him for actually doing that.
Rohan has come on in so many ways this season. We all knew he had buckets of talent and class, but now his commitment to work and his maturity is paying off in a big way – as it should too.
I had to really earn my national time-trial title back in January, in which Rohan was second, but then it's all happened for him since.
Rohan had a brilliant Tour Down Under the week after that, winning that World Tour race overall. And then, we all saw Rohan back-up in February with his word hour record ride in Switzerland.
Maybe he will go back and make another hour record sometime in his career?
Bradley Wiggins' current record of 54.526km will be hard to beat, but if Rohan can continue on from how he rode on Saturday, I reckon he is the guy who can most challenge it.
There is also a lot of talk now about Rohan's potential to become a grand tour rider.
Firstly, apart from being able to time trial, he can climb, which is a must for a grand tour rider.
I've seen how well he can climb first-hand. On the stage I won up Old Willunga Hill in this year's Tour Down Under, I didn't put that much time into him on the climb with my stage-winning attack.
But for a better marker, I still go back to the 2013 Criterium du Dauphine race after Rohan took the leader's yellow jersey on the stage-four time trial
The next day, Froome and I gave it to him on the climb up to the finish at Valmorel, where Froome won the stage to take the leader's jersey off Rohan who hung in there to the bitter end, despite how hard we rode against him. We only just managed to drop him – and that was two years ago
Glimpses like that show he has got the horsepower. With age he will climb better, and by time-trialling like he does, he should be a contender – if not for grand tours then definitely for eight-day races.
* Australian Team Sky rider Richie Porte is racing his fourth Tour de France
