Williams has mixed it with some of the top European riders in the Tour of Qatar, before backing up to place sixth outright in the elite men of the Oceania individual time trial in Melbourne.

Riding for the Drapac Porsche team, the Tour of Qatar again proved to be a challenge, but Williams served notice that he has what it takes to compete at the elite level.

“Qatar was hectic again, fast and windy,” he said.

“Overall I was pleased with how I went.”

He was part of a three-man break on the first road stage that built up a lead of nearly 15 minutes at one stage.

“We swapped off into a block headwind for 50km on a road that did not bend at all – geez that was hard,” he said.

“Then we made a right hand turn and went from going flat out at 30km/h to over 60km/h in a cross wind.

“The bunch split into echelons (small groups) which soon caught us and my day was done.

“I rode into the finish with groupetto (last group on the road).”

The next stage was super fast like last year where riders averaged 56km/h for the 140km stage. “This year was a little slower, but at one stage we were riding at 74km/h on the flat,” he said.

“You need a massive gear to do that, lucky I had one of the biggest you can get a 55 x 11.”

He finished about one minute down on the winner that day Tom Boonen, who is a former world champion.

The following stage was long and mostly into a headwind and featured lots of crashes as the riders got tired and edgy.

Mark Cavendish, who won four stages of the Tour de France last year won the stage.

The next morning the tour was supposed to ride the longest stage of the tour, 147km but woke to hear that one of the young riders from Belgium had died in his sleep.

“It really shook all the riders and staff and so that stage was neutralised in his honour and we had a ceremony for him that night,” he said.

The final stage started in front of the sand dunes in the south of the country before completing seven finish laps around the Corniche in Doha (the bay).

“Once again we had Rhys Pollack from our team in the break which got caught only 15km from the finish,” he said.

Mark Cavendish won the final stage in a bunch sprint and Tom Boonen won the general classification.

“It was a relief to finish the tour without crashing and it’s always hard to race against top European pros, but even harder in Qatar where the wind plays a massive part.”

After arriving back in Australia on Sunday morning, by Thursday he was in Melbourne racing the Oceania individual time trial where he finished sixth in the elite men.

“That was okay considering I had been struggling with jet lag,” he said.

He also contested the road race and team-mate Daniel Braunsteins finished second, which was first in the under 23s.

For now it’s back to studying for Williams, who is starting his final semester of university.