Omega Pharma - Quick-Step Cycling Team rider Kristof Vandewalle won the 44.2km Belgian National TT Championship on Sunday by more than a minute, with a finishing time of 54'04.66. It is the second straight year Vandewalle has won, and is also the 47th win (45th road) for OPQS in three disciplines this season.
Philippe Gilbert (BMC Racing Team) was 2nd (+1:02.89), and Julien Vermote of OPQS was 3rd (+1:05.73). Guillaume Van Keirsbulck was also 7th (+1:43.74).
"I am happy as you can imagine because the parcour was not exactly the parcour for me," Vandewalle said. "But I started really strong and after the first lap I was already first, so I built up my race kilometer by kilometer. Everything went perfectly, no mechanicals or anything. It was a consistent performance and I am happy about it. For me it is also something special to be champion two times in a row. After Tour de Pologne I really worked on my TT to be ready. This race was one of my goals and I made it, so I am really happy about it. I would like to dedicate this victory to all the people who believe in me — the team, my family, friends, and everybody else. I really did something good today. Now my next objective is to try and be selected for the UCI TTT World Championship as I was last year. I know it's difficult because in the team we have a lot of good time trialists, but my goal is to be there and to try and contribute to the team for Worlds."
"This week we came and we did the recon of the parcour," Sport Director Tom Steels said. "Kristof was immediately super fast since the beginning and we saw immediately he had a good day ahead of him. Outside of the corners he was always relaunching really well, his speed was really high. His performance was really good. Julien also did a really good TT, but the problem was the parcour was not really dry 100 percent when he started. So he didn't really speed up out of the corners. He had to pay attention and not take too many risks. But the fact that he was 3rd was a big result for the team and Julien was happy about it, and we are happy for him."