The 2024 road racing season may only be a month old and the first of this spring’s round of Classics have yet to pass, but already there’s a single question hanging over the Belgian curtain-raising double-header in Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne…
Who will stop the super teams?
We are, of course, referring to the men’s Visma-Lease A Bike and women’s SD Worx-Protime teams – the two squads who ran riot last spring, racking up wins left, right, and centre like modern-day versions of Mapei minus the colourful blocks.
Both teams took four wins apiece at WorldTour and Women’s WorldTour level last spring, picking up one-twos along the way and winning several more races besides. Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne, the E3 Saxo Classic, Gent-Wevelgem the Tour of Flanders… You name it, they were on the honour roll.
The only real blotch on the collective copybook was Jumbo-Visma’s relative failure (Wout van Aert‘s fourth and third places) at Flanders and Paris-Roubaix.
The two teams, both emerging in 2024 under slightly different sponsorship getups, are nonetheless once again the teams to beat as Opening Weekend looms. This time last year, they swept the weekend.
On the men’s side, Dylan Van Baarle and Christophe Laporte filled two-thirds of the podium at Omloop before Tiesj Benoot and Nathan Van Hooydonck went one-two at Kuurne. At SD Worx it was Lotte Kopecky and Lorena Wiebes who went one-two at Omloop before Wiebes followed up with Omloop van het Hageland on Sunday.
Barring the sadly retired Van Hooydonck, they’ll all be back in action this weekend, and you can throw in Van Aert, Matteo Jorgenson, Jan Tratnik, Demi Vollering, and Marlen Reusser for good measure. On paper, in the betting shop, and in countless Pro Cycling Manager simulations, the Dutch squads are overwhelming favourites to add to their ceaseless lists of success.
But even if both teams can field a lineup featuring three or four riders who would be undisputed leaders at most other teams in the peloton, bike racing isn’t played out with a pen and paper or on a computer screen.
Around both pelotons across the weekend, there’ll be a wealth of riders striving to prevent more Dutch domination and take some of the glory for themselves, with Soudal-QuickStep and Lidl-Trek Women perhaps best poised to do just that.
Both teams have several potential leaders to call upon – always a positive on the cobbles, where the best-laid plans can vanish in the blink of an eye.
QuickStep’s…
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