Talented 20 year old Bob Jungels has continued to gain momentum as a rider, adding the elite Luxembourg time trial title to his previous haul of national championship medals.
Jungels’s success is the latest in a number of wins this season, his first as a pro. The RadioShack Leopard rider beat team-mate Laurent Didier and Ag2r La Mondiale’s Ben Gastauer yesterday, finishing 55 seconds and one minute 23 ahead of them in the 21.8 kilometre test.
He previously took two junior and two under 23 national titles, and is thus unbeaten at home against the clock. “It’s nice that I’ve never lost a national TT title,” he said. “I had no information on the other competitors but I was able to catch some riders ahead of me and I saw my average so I knew my time was very fast. It wasn’t easy; in fact it was a pretty tough race. There were two laps of 11k with a 5k false flat and the rest a series of small climbs and one serious climb. You could never recover. I am really happy with this jersey…it’s always an honour.”
Jungels is one of the top hopes for Luxembourg cycling, with his talent being such that he is being seen as a rider who could dominate the sport in the years to come. A former junior world time trial winner and 2012 Under 23 Paris-Roubaix last year, his step up to the pro ranks this season has been a successful one.
He took his first pro win in March when he won the GP Nobili Rubinetterie with an impressive solo break. He followed that up with second on a stage of the Circuit de la Sarthe, seventh on day six of the Tour of California plus eighteenth overall, then eighth in the prologue and first on stage four in this month’s Tour of Luxembourg. He was also fifth overall in the latter event.
Jungels’ next event will be the national road race championships this Sunday. He will then take a break prior to starting the Tour de Wallonie on July 20th.