Britain's Ethan Hayter used his time trialling skills to the full on Thursday's stage 2 of the Tour Holland to both score his second win in the race in less than 72 hours and simultaneously blast back into the top spot overall.
Already the winner of the opening prologue on Tuesday evening, Hayter repeated his success in Thursday's ultra-flat 15 kilometre time trial effort in Etten-Leur, beating Swedish national TT champion and race leader Jakob Söderqvist (Lidl-Trek) by two seconds. Third was Christophe Laporte (Visma-Lease a Bike), 15 seconds back.
As a result of his latest triumph and Tim Merlier's sprint victory on Wednesday, Hayter has maintained Soudal-QuickStep's 100% hit rate in the newly revived Tour of Holland. All this on the same day, too, that their French teammate Paul Magnier scored his third straight win in the Tour of Guangxi.
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Hayter now goes into the second, hillier, half of the Tour of Holland with a two second advantage on Söderqvist, with Laporte a further 19 seconds back, and with a sense that come what may in the overall battle from hereon, the race has already been a resounding success.
While the course was notably damp and muddy for his recon this morning, Hayter said, "In the end [during the time trial itself] it was almost dry for me, so I was lucky."
"But it was a hard effort and I saved just enough in the final to take the time back."
"It'll be nice to get the lead back, and we'll see how we do in the next days. I've been taking these end-of-season races day by day so we'll see how it works out."
How it unfolded
With some 20 riders separated by 12 seconds or less overall before the time trial, the out-and-back, dead flat course with few technical sections looked certain to produce some very fast times and keep the GC classification tight.
Johan Price-Pejtersen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) was one of the earliest starters in a field of 109 to set an important marker, the former double U23 European TT Champion powering home with a fastest time of 17:44 - the first under 18 minutes - and averaging nearly 51kmh in the process. However, the Dane's grip of the leader's board did not last for overly long as Daan Hoole, riding his last race with Lidl-Trek on home soil before moving onto Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale next year, then ripped into the top spot by exactly 30 seconds, with a new best time of 17:14.
Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe's Slovenian veteran Jan Tratnik and the Netherlands’ Bart Lemmen (Visma-Lease a Bike) both pushed Hoole close, finishing just six and eight seconds behind the Dutch National Champion. However, Laporte was the first rider actually able to beat Hoole's time at the intermediate split, albeit by just one second, then overtaking minute-man Elmar Abma (Intermarché-Wanty) as he powered home with the same minimal advantage at the finish line.
For Laporte this time trial performance was a real case of rolling back the years, given his last TT win was back in the Tour of Poitou-Charantes in 2019. However, some big hitters were yet to come on a course mixing exposed rural backroads and tree-lined bike lanes, with Hayter three seconds faster than Laporte at the intermediate checkpoint, only for race leader Söderqvist to take another three seconds off the top time mid-course.
Coming into the final kilometre's curving, technical set of paved city centre roads, last year's Renewi Tour time trial winner Alec Segaert (Lotto) was only just unable to pull back from his ten-second disadvantage on Laporte at the mid-race checkpoint and made an impressive effort to close to a second behind the Frenchman. Hayter, on the other hand, soared past his minute-man Olav Kooij (Visma-Lease a Bike) in the closing kilometres to dislodge Laporte from the top of the stage ranking by a massive 15 seconds, and become the first man to go under 17 minutes in the process.
Would Hayter's excellent time of 16:56, mostly built on the back of a very strong second half, be enough to beat Söderqvist? Only three seconds had separated the two at the time split, so it was clear that the stage win - and the lead - would come down to these two.
As the Swedish National TT Champion came into the technical finishing straight in Etten-Leur city centre, the leaderboard showed he was still well within sight of Hayter's best time for the stage. However, with less than 300 metres to go, his options on victory imploded as the clock flashed red to confirm that the Briton was about to claim his second stage win - and simultaneously move back in the overall lead as well.
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