Year-on-year, the QuickStep-AlphaVinyl team heads into the spring Classics as the team to beat, no surprise given their 59 wins on the cobbles stretching back to 2003.
The Belgian squad has racked up eight Tour of Flanders and six Paris-Roubaix victories in that time. Those cobbled Monuments are still some weeks away but the first order of business is Opening Weekend and Saturday's Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, a race QuickStep have won four times in the 19 years since Patrick Lefevere founded the team — including two wins in the past three editions.
They head back to the Classics opener this year with perhaps the strongest team in the peloton: Dane Kasper Asgreen, last year the victor at the E3 Saxo Bank Classic and Tour of Flanders, heads up a squad that includes Yves Lampaert, Florian Sénéchal, and Zdenek Stybar.
No other teams on the start line can quite boast four potential winners on their roster. Dutch squad Jumbo-Visma might be the closest, with Wout van Aert, Mike Teunissen, and Tiesj Benoot set to line up in Gent. That sets up a head to head battle between the two teams.
"I think for sure with the strength they have, with the reinforcements they made to their Classics roster, they will have to take some responsibility, and I don't think they're afraid of doing that either," Asgreen said of Jumbo-Visma.
"I expect to have a good partner in them to control the race. And then when we reach the final obviously then it will be more a rivalry. But there will always be strong teams and so I don't expect it to be much different than how it has been in other years.
"It's difficult to say whether they are stronger or the same strength," he added, running the rule over his team's rivals.
"It also depends on the on the legs of the riders on the day. If one or two riders has a bad day, then it can fall in our favour or their favour. I think with just generally how professional cycling is at the moment, the level is really high from all across the peloton. It's not only us and Jumbo-Visma, for sure."
Asgreen named himself, Lampaert, Sénéchal, and Stybar as the team leaders - "a fairly flat hierarchy" - for Saturday, but noted that he won't be at his top level at the race.
A bluff or the truth?
Asgreen caught COVID-19 at the start of the month and missed the Tour de la Provence, and he adds that missing training days as a result affected him at the subsequent Volta ao Algarve.
Still, rivals will be watching him, regardless.
"I'm completely recovered from the from the illness," he said. "Obviously, I lost a little bit of training, a few training days. That obviously affected me in Algarve, and I think it will also still affect me here and possibly also in Tirreno-Adriatico, because I have a little bit of catching up to do.
"Luckily, with Roubaix being a little bit later this year we already scheduled in some training blocks and maybe a bit less racing than I would normally do. So, I think now with the catching up that I have to do that will definitely come in my favour. I hope I'll be okay for the Classics at the end of the second half of March and beginning of April, but I think I have to be realistic now that I had a bit of a setback and I'm not at hundred percent yet.
With Asgreen and the three other co-leaders at QuickStep-AlphaVinyl come veteran road captain Iljo Keisse, trusty domestique Bert Van Lerberghe, and the powerful Josef Cerny.
Reigning Omloop Het Nieuwsblad champion Davide Ballerini isn't returning to defend his title, while Julian Alaphilippe is forgoing the cobbles this season. Young riders Jannik Steimle and Stan Van Tricht will get their chances here and there, while sprinter Fabio Jakobsen will ride a targeted Classics campaign starting with Sunday's Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne.
The absence of workhorse extraordinaire Tim Declercq is unplanned, however, after the Belgian was struck by pericarditis in Algarve. He'll be missed at the weekend and in the coming several weeks but Asgreen said that he's confident his teammates can fill the gap.
"Obviously, not having Tim here is a big loss for the team. He has huge experience in these races, controlling these races, which is not easy," Asgreen said. "So not having him here will definitely impact the race.
"But we have Josef here as replacement. He's going to be new to the Classics, but he has a big engine as well, so I'm sure he will do well. We did the recon yesterday and he looked good on the cobbles too. I expect him to do a really good job in place of Tim.
"Usually there is always a new guy that steps up when it's when this necessary and I'm sure we'll see that again this year. We also have Jannick Steimle and Stan Van Tricht joining the classic squad a bit later on and they're also going to be super exciting to see in these races."
