Van der Poel solos for 44km to win Dutch road title

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Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix) utterly dominated the Dutch national championships in Drenthe, attacking a select group with 44km remaining and soloing to victory over Sunweb's Nils Eekhoff.

Eekhoff put in the first major attack on the 15th of 25 laps of the 7.3km circuit that included the short, steep VAM-berg climb, but Van der Poel had designs on the tricolor jersey. He splintered the field behind and pulled a small group up to Eekhoff containing Pascal Eenkhoorn and Jos van Emden (Jumbo-Visma), Koen de Kort and Pieter Weening (Trek-Segafredo), Ramon Sinkeldam (Groupama-FDJ) and Corne van Kessel (Circus-Wanty Gobert).

Van der Poel put in a probing attack and shuffled the deck of the lead group, with De Kort and Weening dropped and Jumbo-Visma gaining Timo Roosen and Bert-Jan Lindeman in the group on the next lap.

The Jumbo-Visma riders nullified Van der Poel once with 50km to go but after another lap and another trip up the VAM-berg, the Alpecin-Fenix rider put the hammer down and dropped everyone.

Van der Poel made easy work of the remaining laps, carving out more and more time before raising his arms in victory atop the 'Col du VAM'. Eekhoff held on for silver at 1:31 with Roosen attacking his teammates to take third, a distant 3:08 behind the winner.