As expected, Edvald Boasson Hagen (Team Sky) moved into the race lead in the Eneco Tour after the 14.7km time trial around the streets of Roermond, Netherlands. The Norwegian time trial champion completed the still-damp course in a time of 18’27”; not good enough to win the stage but, more importantly, 17 seconds ahead of overnight race leader Philippe Gilbert (Omega Pharma-Lotto), and enough to take the white jersey.
“It was just as planned,” said Boasson Hagen afterwards. “I had planned to take the overall jersey today. I was feeling quite good, but it was hard in the wet to go as fast as someone else did; but I managed to take the jersey, and that was the main goal, so I’m really happy with that.
While the Norwegian champion had to take extra care in the wet conditions, he was not too concerned, since his rivals were riding at the same time.
“All the GC guys were starting close together,” he explained, “so we had the same conditions and that’s the most important [thing]. I’m really happy just to have the GC and hopefully we can try and keep that.”
Boasson Hagen’s 17-second beating of Gilbert was enough to overhaul his five-second overnight deficit and give him a 12-second lead over the Belgain champion. With two tough, hilly stages to go though – which are both the speciality of Gilbert – Boasson Hagen knows that the race is far from over yet.
“It’s hard to say, he’s really strong – he showed it yesterday – and there’s also bonus seconds, so it’s not much,” said Boasson Hagen. “But hopefully we can keep up with him and keep the leader’s jersey to Sunday.
“Of course, it’s very important on both the two next days, so we have to keep focused and do as good as possible,” he added.
The stage was won by Jesse Sergent (RadioShack), in a time of 17’55”, whose mid-field ride saw him finish before the worst of the rain began to fall. The 23-year-old New Zealander was 14 seconds quicker than Alex Rasmussen (HTC-Highroad), and 20 seconds quicker than Jürgen Roelandts (Omega Pharma-Lotto) to take his first victory since winning the Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen.
“I think [the weather] definitely was [an advantage].” Said the New Zealander after the stage. “I had some bad luck yesterday, and had a puncture in the final ten-k, and an never made it up to the group. So I think the luck turned around today and that ended up giving me a [earlier – ed] start time and, yeah, I got lucky with the weather and some dry roads there for the majority of the race.
“It was up and down all day, the weather, and it was definitely hard to judge,” he added. “Luckily for me it was only wet probably one-k of the whole race, so yeah, I got lucky.”
The first rider off was Feng Han (Skil-Shimano) 20’53” and, despite the dry conditions, the Chinese rider could only manage to complete the course in 20’53”. He was not actually the first rider to finish the course, since he was caught by William Clarke (Leopard Trek), who had started a minute behind him. The Australian posted a respectable 18’40”, which would be the time to beat for some time.
Clarke’s time was actually to stand for almost forty minutes, until Jens Mouris (Vacansoleil-DCM) posted 18’25”, despite riding with a bandaged arm from a crash on the previous day. 25 minutes later though, Rasmussen went 16 seconds quicker, in 18’09”; this was only to last for a few minutes though, as Sergent finished not long afterwards, lowering the best time to 17’55”.
With the rain now beginning to fall, and to get heavier, this looked to be the time that would win the stage.
Vladimir Isiachev (Katusha) looked to be about to threaten Sergent’s position, after going fastest over the first half but slowed down as the rain made the course increasingly slippery. The Russian tiptoed around the latter kilometres to finish in 18’22”, 27 seconds slower than Sergent.
Two riders later Jürgen Roelandts (Omega Pharma-Lotto) went closer still, posting 18’15”, but the rain was fallin hard by now, and most riders without overall classification ambitions were happy just to make it around in an upright manner.
To illustrate this, Sebastian Langeveld (Rabobank) overcooked one of the wet corners completely and was forced to hop up onto the sidewalk to avoid coming down. Despite this mishap, the Dutchman still managed to finish in 18’34”, which would see him finish the stage.
Former Dutch time trial – and World cyclocross – champion Lars Boom (Rabobank) was forced to endure probably the heaviest of the rain. He still managed to finish in 18’22”, and fifth place, giving him food for thought over how well he might have gone if he’d enjoyed the same conditions as Sergent.
As the top ten riders began to take to the start, the rain stopped, but the damage had been done and the roads were already soaking wet. Prologue winner – and race leader until the previous day – Taylor Phinney (BMC Racing) managed to post 18’25”, lifting himself into the top five overall once more.
The roads were beginning to dry by now, but the corners were still damp and nobody was coming close to the times of the earlier starters.
David Millar (Garmin-Cervélo) started the day just 14 seconds behind Gilbert, and had designs on taking the jersey from the Belgian champion. He could only manage a relatively average 18’37” on the damp roads but, with Gilbert being far from a specialist in the discipline, he still had hope.
Unfortunately for Millar though, Boasson Hagen went ten seconds faster than e did, with 18’27”. The Norwegian extended his eight-second lead over the former British champion, and only had to wait for Gilbert to finish to see if he would take the race lead.
Gilbert, riding the time trial of his life on roads that were now almost dry in the August heat, managed to post 18’44”; halving his advantage over Millar and, more importantly, slipping behind Boasson Hagen to lose the jersey that he’d held for just one day.