After winning the prologue of the 2011 Tour of Beijng in his new rainbow striped world champion jersey on Wednesday, Team HTC-Highroad's German Tony Martin proved able to defend the lead for the rest of the race and secured the overall race victory in Beijing earlier today.

Taking a 17 second lead in stage one over Team Garmin-Cervélo's David Millar gave the team a good buffer for the week ahead and Team HTC-HighRoad sports director Allan Peiper says he was always confident that his team could defend it.

"With 17 seconds and no bonifications on the road I knew we had a good chance," Peiper said after the race and added "The team raced really well and were always on top of things when they needed to be. It's been a really nice race and I'm proud of the way the guys gave everything right up to the very end of the season."

For Martin, winning his first tour since being crowned World Time Trial Champion in Copenhagen, Denmark last month was something special. "Putting on the rainbow jersey was really nice and gave me a lot of confidence coming into this race. I knew I still had good form and I had a really strong team to back me up. I'm really happy that it all worked out."

Martin will return to Europe for the time trial race Chrono de Nations, his last race before ending his season and another chance for him to wear his World Champion colors.