Even with the yellow jersey on his lap as tangible evidence, the realization only slowly dawns on Lampaert. “I’ve seen the images on Sporza’s Instagram page, but it’s still hard to grasp who I’ve beaten. It’s too crazy for words, you can’t believe it.”
“It’s just very special. This morning I had the ambition to make it to the top ten. If you cross the finish line as the winner and big stars like Van Aert, Ganna and Van der Poel beat on such a course, that’s all. not so obvious. I did it anyway, that remains unbelievable.”
Strikingly, unlike his teammates, Lampaert did not opt for the new Specialized helmet. Although that was not the key to his success, he said. “I don’t think the helmet made much of a difference. I just opted for the old helmet because I hadn’t done any competition with the new helmet yet. I still wanted to use material I was familiar with.”
“Maybe the difference was in the wet tires I put on. That made me a little slower in the straights, but a little faster in the corners. I felt like Max Verstappen today.”
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Wout van Aert had to swallow when Lampaert knocked him off the throne, but the number 2 showed himself sporty and congratulated Lampaert. “Wout was genuinely happy for me. We have also both been Belgian time trial champions twice. It’s great that we are now 1 and 2.”
“As Belgium, we are really doing phenomenally in the field of time trialling. It is not obvious that we participate with the world top in that discipline. It is phenomenal what we have achieved in recent years. Victor Campenaerts may have laid the foundation for this.”
A few weeks ago, Lampaert was criticized after his affair with Tim Wellens in the Baloise Belgium Tour. That seems completely forgotten now. “I spoke with Tim at the BC. He also said that we had him well boxed in tactically. It happens more often than you think, this is top sport.”
“It was also nothing more than making me wide, I didn’t take my hands off the wheel. We secured it and took the win. It may look brutal to non-experts, but in bunch sprints it happens a lot.”
Tomorrow Lampaert can start the second stage in yellow. But how long can he hold the jersey? “That’s hard to say. We have to stick to our goals and that is tomorrow’s bunch sprint with Fabio Jakobsen. If he wins and someone other than Wout is second, I will keep the jersey for another day.”
“Everything that comes now is a bonus. We should not focus on the yellow jersey, but on victories. With Fabio we have the fastest man in the pack and we will do everything we can to win tomorrow.”
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