Jakob Söderqvist has once again demonstrated his time trial strength, particularly in short prologue time trials.
The Swedish time trial champion won the 3.1-kilometre opening time trial of the Eneco Tour in The Hague. Söderqvist completed the course in 3:32 minutes, beating Dutchman Wessel Mouris by 0.75 seconds.
Kristian Egholm also put in a strong performance, finishing 11th in the prologue, around seven seconds behind. Sebastian Grindley finished 18th, nine seconds down, while Edward Theuns (+0:11) came 26th, Thor Michielsen (+0:15) finished 40th, and Benedikt Benz (+0:17) took 50th place.
With this victory, Söderqvist also naturally takes the overall lead in the six-day stage race in the Netherlands. Stage 1 on Wednesday is flat and takes place around Ede, where a bunch sprint is expected.
However, the time trial specialists will be back in the spotlight as early as Stage 2 on Thursday in Tilburg, when the riders will once again race against the clock over a distance of 13.6 kilometres.
In Jakob’s words:
It went of course really well. It was a really solid time trial and I managed to come with the right mindset to really do it in the best way. The parcours is always more technical, when it's a shorter distance, because every corner matters even more for the final time, when the margins are smaller. And this is something I like. But I would also say, I focused more on keeping it up straight, compared to maybe the Worlds, where I risked a bit more to fight for the higher spots. But still I could take enough time to seal the deal. I prepared by doing six laps in the recon – of course there were many people on the course at the same time, but I was doing my thing and tried to feel every corner, doing it more times to do it as close as possible to competition speed at least once. It was also similar to last year, so I remembered a few things. And maybe you could win it in the corners, but I don't feel I did – I did it all under control and more the key was the pacing and investing the power at the right spots. I think that was needed, to take the win.
