Bradley Wiggins had no answers to a dominant Tony Martin as the British cyclist was made to settle for silver at the Road World Championships yesterday.

Germany’s Martin eased to to a hat-trick of world time-trial titles over the 58-kilometre course, beating London 2012 gold medallist Wiggins by 46.09 seconds. Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland came third.

Wiggins had been hoping to end a difficult year on a high in Florence. He was forced to abandon May’s Giro d’Italia through illness and missed out on defending his Tour de France title through injury as Chris Froome won.