Decathlon and Red Bull impress collectively as Visma and Lidl-Trek begin to splutter

It cuts both ways in that regard. Visma | Lease a Bike lost Tiesj Benoot, Dylan van Baarle and Olav Kooij over the winter, while the Dutch team also opted for a different seasonal approach with Matteo Jorgenson. Lidl-Trek, meanwhile, saw several key spring pieces leave as well, with Daan Hoole, Jasper Stuyven, Alex Kirsch and Tim Declercq all moving on.

Then there is the bad-luck factor. Toms Skujins is missing the whole spring, while Mads Pedersen — after his crash in Valencia — can already be happy just to be racing the Classics at all. Jonathan Milan has been ill, Albert Withen Philipsen has crashed several times, Søren Kragh Andersen has already missed races, and so the list goes on.

At Visma | Lease a Bike, Wout van Aert was already ruled out of Omloop through illness, Christophe Laporte had to be withdrawn from Samyn for the same reason, and Matthew Brennan is still not back at his best after the illness he picked up before Milan-San Remo. On Sunday, Timo Kielich — a regular value for the team this spring — also dropped out with a broken collarbone.

As a result, the Dutch squad had only two riders left in the race on the Plugstreets on Sunday. “Timo and Christophe were supposed to be there for that section, but then Timo goes down. In that situation, we would have liked to have had more riders left,” sports director Arthur van Dongen admitted afterwards. Even so, Visma could still be reasonably satisfied with the end results in Harelbeke, where Per Strand Hagenes finished second, and in Wevelgem, where Christophe Laporte took third.

At Lidl-Trek — who had to scratch Pedersen before the start — Søren Kragh Andersen was their best finisher in 46th place. A struggling Jonathan Milan was last seen on camera while angrily telling his sports director to go away after being ridden out of the wheels on the way into Wevelgem.

The mood was very different at the French team Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale, even though they too took a few blows on the road to the spring. Outstanding teamwork — from Sander De Pestel and Stefan Bissegger via Daan Hoole and Oliver Naesen to lead-out man Cees Bol — helped leader Tobias Lund Andresen to second place in Wevelgem. That came after he had already ridden top-10s in Omloop, Kuurne and E3, while also winning WorldTour races in Tirreno-Adriatico and the Tour Down Under.

“It sounds like a cliché, but the team was unbelievable,” Andresen said afterwards. The Dane appears to have stepped in seamlessly for the injured Tiesj Benoot and the ill Olav Kooij. “You think it’s probably impossible to bring those two back — they’re Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert, not just any riders — so it’s really impressive that we did manage to reel them in, and it shows our collective strength.”

Hoole, meanwhile, also showed again in Belgium on Friday and Sunday that his performances during Opening Weekend and Paris-Nice — where he was among the strongest riders before abandoning with a broken finger — were no coincidence. “There was a descent and someone crashed in front of me, so it was just bad luck, what happened there.”

“The tip of my finger was scraped open a bit, and there are a lot of nerves in your finger, so it hurt a lot,” the Dutchman told IDLProCycling.com. “But apart from that, everything was okay. It took a few days, but I was back on the bike fairly quickly. It was frustrating because things were going really well at that point, but I don’t think I lost all that much.”

“With a new coach, I’ve worked a bit more on the details, and of course last year I also had a season with two Grand Tours and 80 race days — without getting sick,” said Hoole, who has moved to Monaco and is hoping to hit his peak in Paris-Roubaix. “Realistically, that race should suit me best, and I’m hoping for a top five.” His Roubaix ambitions and recent injury setback had already been detailed on IDL ProCycling earlier this month, making that a logical internal link replacement here.

At Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe, they looked back on the past weekend with mixed feelings. On both Friday and Sunday, the team was collectively very strong, but in the end an eighth place for Gianni Vermeersch in E3 on Friday was the maximum return after Tim van Dijke had helped blow the race open. On Sunday, the team fully backed Jordi Meeus, but he never got the chance to sprint for the result.

“We’ve taken a slightly different approach,” Mick van Dijke explained. “So far we’ve had very few setbacks, and the team is much stronger in depth than it was last year. We feel really good and we’re trying to look at it race by race.” The rider from Zeeland has regularly been visible alongside his brother Tim, Laurence Pithie, Gianni Vermeersch and positioning specialist Jarrad Drizners.

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“Tim was already close, but also still a long way off. Finishing second in Omloop Het Nieuwsblad — a race everyone circles in red — shows that we can have ambition, and it motivates you in training,” Van Dijke continued. “In the end Tim finishes second, but it starts with Drizners there, or with Callum Thornley in Paris-Nice. We’ve all had to do that work ourselves too, and we know how important it is.”

“That set the tone, and I think we’re one of the strongest teams — although we also have to stay realistic when it comes to riders like Mathieu van der Poel or Tadej Pogacar,” Van Dijke said. He and his brother are also due to line up for Dwars door Vlaanderen, the Tour of Flanders and, ultimately, the race in which they may be able to shine most of all: Paris-Roubaix.

So we have not seen the last of Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale and Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe yet. Tobias Lund Andresen will wrap up his Classics block on Wednesday. “Dwars door Vlaanderen on Wednesday is my next goal, my last race of the Classics period, and one final chance to give everything there.” And the mood at Red Bull is similar. “After what we showed in Omloop and in the other races, we still want to turn something into a result,” Tim van Dijke said.