Eneco Tour: Söderqvist doubles win with time trial dominance and increasingly secures leader's jersey

Jakob Söderqvist scored a double at the Eneco Tour! After his success in the prologue, the Lidl-Trek rider repeated his feat in the individual time trial of stage 2, held Thursday in Tilburg, and further distanced himself from his rivals in the overall standings.

Over the 13.6 kilometers of completely flat terrain, the battle was fierce until the very end. The provisional fastest time belonged to Finn Fisher-Black (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), who held off a strong comeback from Ethan Hayter (Soudal-QuickStep) by less than half a second. Then the Swede took the lead, and there was no chance of a second to secure the leader's seat.

Söderqvist took a huge risk: he pushed on the pedals too early in one of the final corners, touching the asphalt with his pedal, and nearly fell. He kept his bike upright and finished in 15:04 , 11 seconds ahead of Fisher-Black. He was also the only rider to average over 54 km/h over the entire race.

With a small leap across the finish line, the Swede scored his eighth career victory, his sixth professional time trial victory. In the overall standings, his lead over Hayter is now 14 seconds and over Fisher-Black 15 .

The winner's comment: "It was a fast race; in fact, I experienced it faster than I expected. I didn't feel much of a headwind, even though we'd talked about it a lot the day before. It was simply a good day. The curves kept me focused, just the way I like them, and it was a greater pleasure than usual."

At the end, he added: "I'm happy; everything went as we hoped. Last year, I was strong in this race, so we knew it would suit me, but I'm happy that my form is still there at this time of year, and we hope to maintain it."

How the stage unfolded. The start was in reverse order of the rankings, with Milan De Ceuster (Picnic PostNL) leading the 87 riders. The first serious time was that of Steffen De Schuyteneer (Lotto Intermarché) with 15:46, later beaten by Milan Lanhove (Team Flanders-Baloise) by eight seconds. Lanhove knew his time was vulnerable, given that several specialists were already in the top ten overall after the prologue, and indeed Victor Campenaerts (Visma-Lease a Bike) edged him out by 11 seconds.

At the intermediate checkpoint, Campenaerts was led by teammate Edoardo Affini and Kristian Egholm (Lidl-Trek Future Racing), but both lost more than 10 seconds to the Belgian's unstoppable finish. Then Pepijn Reinderink (Soudal-Quick-Step) was the first to average over 53 km/h, before Fisher-Black beat him by four seconds. Hayter chased closely, missing the lead by less than half a second, but Söderqvist was already at full speed: at the intermediate checkpoint, he had a five-second advantage over the New Zealander and, despite a near-crash before the final kilometer, finished more than 10 seconds ahead of everyone else.

Top 10 of the day: 1. Söderqvist (Lidl-Trek) 15:04; 2. Fisher-Black (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) +11"; 3. Hayter (Soudal Quick-Step) +11"; 4. Reinderink (Soudal Quick-Step) +16"; 5. Kopecký (Unibet Rose Rockets) +17"; 6. Wessel Mouris (Unibet Rose Rockets) +18"; 7. Campenaerts (Visma-Lease a Bike) +22"; 8. Michiel Mouris (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) +28"; 9. Laporte (Visma-Lease a Bike) +28"; 10. Egholm (Lidl-Trek) +32".

Photo: Sprint Cycling Agency