Following Soudal-QuickStep's most recent victory at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, courtesy of the recently departed Davide Ballerini in 2021, the team have yet to sniff another triumph in the Opening Weekend curtain-raiser.
Florian Sénèchal, another winter departure, and Ballerini – ninth and sixth the last two seasons – did at least keep up the post-2019 run of top 10 placings going. However, even that is gone after Saturday's afternoon of racing.
Instead, the Belgian Classics powerhouse delivered a team-best 21st in Ninove, with homegrown contender Yves Lampaert their sole representative in the main 'peloton' behind Jan Tratnik and Nils Politt.
The team hadn't been invisible during the day – Kasper Asgreen and new signing Gianni Moscon made the front group after the peloton's new Classics overlords Visma-Lease A Bike blew things apart in the crosswinds with over 130km to run.
And, less happily, the Dane and Julian Alaphilippe were seen crashing out of the race, along with Sénèchal incidentally, 23km from the finish. However, those proved the highlights and lowlights of a day which delivered them more of the latter than the former.
"We can't be too negative with the team, but I was personally never in the race, and I didn't have a good day. It's a miracle I actually stayed in the peloton," Lampaert reflected in front of Sporza's microphone afterwards.
"We've already had some bad luck with Asgreen and Alaphilippe crashing. Hopefully, that will get better in the future."
The bad luck is one thing – Asgreen and Alaphilippe got away from the fall with some elbow pain and scrapes – but even without the crashes, Soudal-QuickStep's display still lies some way short of the once-dominant force they have been on the cobbles.
Veteran directeur sportif Tom Steels, who himself won Omloop nearly three decades ago riding for the byword for Classics success Mapei, spoke after the race to WielerFlits to offer up some context for his team's performance.
"We saw Gianni Moscon back at the front of a race for the first time in a while. And he just came back from altitude," Steels said of the Italian, who lasted in the lead split until just past the 50km mark, by that point one of just eight survivors from the 23 who had gone away,
"Kasper Asgreen was in the group, even though he had a long training camp behind him. For a race such as this, you also need some race rhythm. They didn't have that today but they were where they could be.
"I was also quite hopeful for Julian. The way he came back on Berendries was pretty good. He felt good, too. Then came that heavy crash. I'm just happy that he and Kasper came through in one piece and we didn't lose our leaders."
The running theme among QuickStep riders and staff speaking to the press in the aftermath of another disappointing Omloop afternoon was centred on the bad luck endured on the 202km route from Gent to Ninove, with Asgreen later saying that "hopefully we've used it all up this weekend."
But Steels also looked to the future with some hope, noting that any riders undercooked heading into Opening Weekend can ride into form at the upcoming Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico before hitting the Classics later in March.
"I don't think we can talk about a disaster scenario," he said. "The crash was just too much but I think we can look to the next races with hope."
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