Eneco Tour: Van Emden wins time trial in Hoogerheide

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Jos van Emden (LottoNL-Jumbo) claimed victory in the stage 4 time trial at the Eneco Tour in Hoogerheide, moving into the overall lead in the process.

The Dutchman was among the early starters on Wednesday’s stage and he produced a faultless ride over the 14-kilometre course to stop the clock in 16:34. That was enough to put Van Emden ahead of the early pace-setter Adriano Malori (Movistar) atop the leaderboard, and he would take up position in the hot seat by the finish line for the duration of the afternoon.

The only rider to threaten Van Emden’s time would prove to be his teammate Wilco Kelderman. The Dutch national time trial champion, still smarting from a crash-blighted Tour de France, scorched around the course just two seconds slower than Van Emden to take second place on the stage.

“It’s very important. Victory is always important, especially for the team, because we don’t have so many victories yet this year,” Van Emden said afterwards. “But the time trials are going well for the team recently and I think I deserved this win.”

Malori held on for third on the stage, just ahead of Lars Boom (Astana), who has positioned himself just seven seconds off the overall lead ahead of the Eneco Tour’s final troika of stages over Classics terrain in Belgium and Dutch Limburg.

BMC’s duo of Greg Van Avermaet and Philippe Gilbert also did their chances of landing final overall victory no harm by placing 6th and 8th on the stage, respectively, and the Belgians occupy the same positions in the general classification. Van Avermaet was just 14 seconds down on Van Emden, while Gilbert delivered a fluid performance to finish the day just a further 20 seconds back.

It was a less successful outing for the Etixx-QuickStep team, another squad with a number of potential options for the final general classification. Niki Terpstra suffered a mechanical problem and lost 1:26, and their best finisher on the stage was Julian Alaphillippe, who had to settle for 27th place, 41 seconds down on Van Emden.

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