Jurgen Van den Broeck (Lotto Soudal) confirmed his great progress in the time trials by taking a surprise victory in the Belgian TT championships. The grand tour star beat Yves Lampaert (Etixx-QuickStep) by 42 secondswhile defending champion Kristof Vandewalle (Trek) was 1.07 behind in third.

Van den Broeck first rose to fame when he became junior world time trial champion but since he turned professional his main strength has been his climbing. In fact the time trials have been a disadvantage in his attempt to finish on the podium in grand tours.

However, he has improved a lot in 2015 and after doing excellent time trials in the Giro and the Tour de Romandie, he decided to give the Belgian championships a shot. That proved to be a wise decision as he was clearly the strongest on the 41.2km course in Postel.

Van den Broeck was an early starter and stopped the clock in 58.32 before he faced a long, nervous wait in the hot seat. However, nobody was even close to his time and he was fastest at every time check.

With the win, Van den Broeck has broken Vandewalle's winning streak of three consecutive victories. Prior to today, his best performance was a third place in 2007.

Van den Broeck is set to leave Lotto Soudal at the end of the year but first he will be part of a very strong team for Sunday's road race where the aim to defend Jens Debusschere's title.