For most of the team’s existence, Soudal-QuickStep have developed the useful habit of winning early and often at the Tour de France. Even last year’s race, which ultimately proved a relatively modest one for Patrick Lefevere’s squad by their traditional standards, began with back-to-back stage wins in Denmark.
The 2023 edition, by contrast, has yielded nothing of note thus far for Soudal-QuickStep. On the first rest day, they suffered the indignity of sitting at the very bottom of the prize money table, amassing just €3,600 in primes across the first nine stages compared to leader Alpecin-Deceuninck’s €48,200.
As the Tour passes its midpoint, Soudal-QuickStep have yet to pick up a stage victory and with sprinter Fabio Jakobsen still suffering the effects of his heavy crash on stage 4, they face the increasing risk of drawing a blank at the race for the first time since 2012.
Although Remco Evenepoel’s extravagant gifts have drawn the eye elsewhere this season, there is no overlooking the fact that Soudal-QuickStep’s traditional hunting grounds of the cobbled Classics and the Tour have failed to provide anything like their yield of old.
“They’re still smiling, they’re still eating, they’re still drinking. They’re still motivated every day even if they suffer,” directeur sportif Tom Steels told Cyclingnews in Clermont-Ferrand on Wednesday. “But when you’re at the Tour, some years it goes easier than other years. We’ll still go full gas to Paris.”
QuickStep’s sprint unit has traditionally been the bedrock of the team’s Tour success. When Sam Bennett joined the team in 2020, for instance, he admitted that he was particularly motivated by the fear of becoming the first QuickStep sprinter to fail to win a stage at the Tour.
Jakobsen inherited the weighty mantle at last year’s race, and he lived up to his billing by winning the opening road stage in Nybørg. This time out, however, the European champion has been hampered by the lingering effects of his heavy crash in Nogaro on stage 4 and has been only a flickering presence in bunch finishes since, his flame already guttering before the sprint ignites.
“He just has to find his explosivity back and after a crash that’s usually the last thing that comes back, really, those small accelerations you need. The other day in Bordeaux it wasn’t back. I hope today it is back,” Steels said with guarded optimism before stage 11 got underway.
Jakobsen had coped relatively well with the demands of staying inside the time…
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