Omega Pharma-QuickStep have been voted best team of 2014 in the Cyclingnews Reader Poll. The Belgian team took more than a quarter of the votes, nearly 10 per cent more than their closest rivals BMC Racing and Movistar.
The team, which will be known as Etixx-QuickStep in 2015, claimed an astonishing 63 victories this season, the most of any team in the pro peloton. They may have lost two of their world titles this year but they added two more to replace them. Zdenek Stybar kicked off the team’s year with a win at the cyclo-cross World Championships, while Michal Kwiatkowski made it two rainbow jerseys with a victory in the road race in Ponferrada.
Among their other victories were Niki Terpstra’s solo flyer at Paris-Roubaix and Tony Martin’s two stage wins at the Tour de France. Mark Cavendish may have crashed out of the Tour de France but he still managed to notch up 11 wins in the Omega Pharma-QuickStep jersey plus some recent success on the track.
The Spring Classics will play another big role in the team’s ambitions for 2015, while Kwiatkowski and Rigoberto Uran will lead the way at the stage races. The world champion and his teammates Martin and Cavendish sent this short message for the thousands of fans who voted for them in the Cyclingnews Reader Poll.
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