For Lidl-Trek Future rider Cameron Rogers, nephew of former pro Michael, the ongoing Tour of Holland may be his final race of the season, but in Tuesday's prologue, he came fractions of a second away from his first win of 2025.
The Australian beat Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) to win the prologue of the Tour of Austria last summer, but this season has been a challenging one for the 20-year-old following heart surgery in February.
He didn't begin his season until the Circuit des Ardennes in April and has hit his stride in recent weeks, taking seventh place at the GP Rik Van Looy last month. The Tour of Holland prologue in The Hague saw him miss out on a win by just 0.28 of a second, with Ethan Hayter (Soudal-QuickStep) denying him after over an hour spent in the hot seat as provisional leader.
"It was very close in the end. Ethan was not even a second ahead of me. I was hoping that it would last until the end. So long in the hot seat just be taken away is a bit unfortunate, but second is still a good result, so I'm happy," Rogers told WielerFlits after the race before going on to explain the story of his 2025 season.
"It's a bit of a long story, actually. I ended up having to get heart surgery in February to fix some small issues," he said.
"It's been a long road to come back from that, for sure. I'm only just coming back to strength.
"The GP Rik Van Looy was a good test to see how strong I was. It was the first race where I felt good, finally, for the season. Now I'm coming into strength, but it's unfortunate that it's the last race of the season. At least I've been able to get a result out of it."
Rogers' Lidl-Trek teammate, under-23 world time trial champion Jakob Söderqvist, rounded out the podium in third place, just another 0.17 of a second further back. He and Rogers could boast of beating the likes of Christophe Laporte, Yves Lampaert, and former triple under-23 European time trial champion Alec Segaert, however.
Now Rogers will be looking forward to Friday's stage 3 time trial, a 15km test in Etten-Leur.
"I know I'm good with the short races. I'm a powerful rider, so it suits me well. For time trials as well, it's in my genes. I knew I could do something. I was hoping for first, but I'll settle for second," he said.
"I've been working on the time trials a lot. I hope my power extends out to the longer kilometres, but we'll see. I'm looking forward to it and I've got a lot of confidence."
Rogers also spoke about his uncle Michael, who works at Lidl-Trek as manager of the women's setup.
"He's the reason I'm able to ride, really," he said. "He's the family away from home. He lives over here, so it's nice to be able to escape to him whenever.
"He guides me. He shows me how it's done because he's done it all before. I wouldn't be able to do it without him. He really supports him. It's awesome and the relationship is great."
