After Monday’s opening stage in Friesland the Benelux Tour headed to the Dutch city of Lelystad for an 11,1km individual time trial. The course in Lelystad, a city built on reclaimed land 50 years ago, was one suited to true specialists with long straights, only six turns and two technical hairpins. The strong head wind on the first part, which then became a nice tail wind in the run to the finish, also played its part.
American Brandon McNulty put down a first marker with 12:39.27, but had to finally settle for 10th. It still took an hour for his time to get beaten, with Langeveld and Van Emden just falling short. So did Remco Evenepoel, the Deceuninck-Quick Step star reporting signs of illness and languishing down in 18th.
Edoardo Affini, the Italian from Jumbo-Visma, finally pulverised McNulty’s benchmark by 16 seconds and witnessed how Tom Dumoulin and last year’s winner Soren Kragh Andersen failed to beat his time. However, Bissegger did manage to demote the Italian by taking another 15 seconds out of his time, his 12:08.73 effort nearing a 55km average.
Specialists Stefan Küng and Kasper Asgreen had no answer, European champion Kung taking third and European champion Asgreen one further place in arrears. In the general classification Bissegger took over the leader’s jersey from Monday’s sprint winner Tim Merlier, who finished 53rd. Asgreen and Küng are now second and third 19 seconds behind Bissegger.
