It is his second season win for Van Emden, after he won the prologue in the ZLM Tour last week. It is the 32nd victory of this season for Team Jumbo-Visma.

“I think this is one of the nicest jerseys there is”, a happy Van Emden said. “It almost became an obsession for me to win here again. If it wouldn’t have worked out, I would have found it a loss. I did not anticipate this victory though. Yesterday, I did not feel too good due to the heat, so my confidence dropped. I am not satisfied with my time trial, but I kept fighting until the end and that resulted in this jersey. I partly owe this victory to Mathieu Heijboer. He puts a lot of time and energy in me and this discipline and he knows how much I wanted to win. I trust him blindly.”

Head of performance Heijboer called it an emotional victory. “Jos often gets beaten by a small margin. The fact that we succeeded today is one of the highlights of the year. We have invested a lot of time in this discipline. We went to the wind tunnel and tested new material from our partners. As a result, Jos’s position was adjusted somewhat and this resulted in a faster time trial. He is an essential link in the team, also for the victories of Primoz in the past six months. But in addition, the fire for the time trial continues to burn within him. It will never go away and we will continue to try to improve.”

Heijboer will assist Wout van Aert in the Belgian championship tomorrow. “After the spring, we trained a lot on the time trial with Wout. This resulted in a great victory in the Dauphiné. Hopefully he can take the Belgian jersey tomorrow. And the day after tomorrow we also have a good chance with Tony Martin in Germany. One of the reasons that Tony came to ride for this team is that he brings a lot of knowledge about the time trial. In that respect, Jos’s title may also be due to him. Tony has given the time trial a new impulse in our team.”