Sebastian Langeveld (Garmin-Sharp) completed an excellent solo performance in the Dutch championships in impressive fashion to take his first ever national road race title. Despite being up against large contingents from Belkin and Giant-Shimano, the Garmin rider proved to be in a class of his own and added the victory to the silver medal he had taken in Wednesday's time trial.

Going into the Dutch road race championships, the odds were on Giant-Shimano or Belkin to exploit their numerical superiority to come away with the title. However, Sebastian Langeveld defied expectations and denied the major favourites the win that they had been looking for.

Langeveld joined a strong 11-rider group that emerged in the finale and had teammate Dylan van Baarle for company. With Lars Boom and Maarten Tjallingii from Belkin and Brian Bulgac, Tom Dumoulin and Ramon Sinkeldam from Giant, both the major teams had riders in the group but they failed to control an unstoppable Langeveld.

Langeveld made his move from afar and from there no one could deny him the win. His chasers were all caught by the peloton in which Belkin were doing their utmost to bring him back but they failed to do so. At the finish line, Langeveld still had a 33-second advantage and could take his first national road race title. Behind, Niki Terstra (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) beat Wesley Kreder (Wanty) in the sprint for the minor positions, meaning that both Belkin and Giant left the race empty-handed.

The race was held on a circuit in Oostmarsum that had two smaller climbs. However, the main difficult was the distance of 243km that would take its toll on a lot of riders.

Early on a very big 15-rider group was allowed to build up a 10-minute gap before the small Parkhotel Valkenburg team started to chase. As they approached the finish, more teams joined the work and the gap started to come down.

When the break was caught, new attacks were launched and in the end, an 11-rider group had gone clear. In addition to Langeveld, van Baarle, Boom, Tjallingii, Sinkeldam, Bulgac and Dumoulin, Terpstra, Danny Van Poppel (Trek), Ronan Van Zandbeek (De Rijke), Coen Vermeltffor (De Rijke) and Dennis Smit (Metec) had all made it into the move.

The escapees worked well together to build a gap before Langeveld launched his move from afar. Tjallingii tried to bridge across twice but failed to do so and instead the peloton caught the chasers. It was all too late for the big teams though and Langeveld held on to take a solo victory.

The Garmin-Sharp roster for the Tour de France hasn't been announced yet and so it is still unclear whether the Dutch champion's jersey will be on show in France.

Result:

1. Sebastien Langeveld 5.42.01

2. Niki Terpstra +0.33

3. Wesley Kreder

4. Tom Veelers

5. Theo Bos

6. Bram Tankink

7. Berden De Vries

8. Jesper Asselman

9. Coen Vermeltfoort

10. Martijn Keizer