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Yves Lampaert (Soudal-QuickStep) blasted to the opening victory in the Tour de Suisse, a short, ultra-fast individual time trial through the streets of Vaduz.
Second was Stefan Bissegger (EF Education-Easy Post), three seconds back, with Ethan Hayter (Ineos Grenadiers) in third.
Averaging a speed of over 56kmh, the flying Lampaert established an early best time of 5:05 for the technical, flat 4.77 km course, held over a mixture of bike paths, rural lanes and city streets.
The former Belgian National TT champion held on throughout the afternoon of variable weather conditions to take his first win since the 2022 Tour de France opening TT on the streets of Denmark.
Lampaert will now lead the Tour de Suisse into its second rolling stage from Vaduz to Regensdorf, likely to end in a reduced bunch sprint.
“I didn’t expect to beat the Swiss specialists like Bissegger and [Stefan] Kung,” Lampaert said afterwards. “I’m really proud to do it, I know this distance suits me well.”
With his previous win now nearly two years distant, Lampaert said that he was delighted to be able to add a second stage victory in Suisse to the time trial triumph he captured back in the 2019 edition of the race.
“Yes, absolutely, nowadays the level is so high in cycling, at one moment I started to doubt myself. But I never gave up believing and kept training as well as possible. So it gives me a lot of satisfaction that I could take the victory today.”
More later…
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