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Roger De Vlaeminck during 1974 Paris-Roubaix (NEGT0672005)

Roger De Vlaeminck turns 75

Roger De Vlaeminck is Erik's younger brother. The two brothers share a passion for cycling. When Mr. Paris-Roubaix in 1963 decides to leave football aside and discovers the bike, it's ...

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21 July 2019, 15th stage of the Tour de France, Foix

Hungry wolves. Quick-Step Cyling Team in 32 pictures

'Putting the right people in the right place and making sure they don't fall asleep. Apparently I have that quality. When I arrive at a race, everyone rolls up their sleeves. And if I cannot be there myself, I'll make sure that I'm present in spirit.' With this quote, Patrick Lefevere explains the success of the Quick-Step Cycling Team. Through 32 action photos, you take a trip through the history of the team.

12 July 2003, 7th stage of the Tour de France, Morzine/Avoriaz — After a particularly punishing race on the flanks of the Col de la Ramaz, Richard Virenque crossed the finishing line in Morzine more than two minutes ahead of the German Rolf Aldag. It was the first Grand Tour stage victory for the new Quick-Step-Davitamon team and the first maillot jaune. Many more were to follow.

9 October 2003, World Time Trial Championships in Hamilton, Canada — Achieving an average speed of over 47.3 km/h, Michael Rogers came second in the individual time trial after an unbridled David Millar. Following his doping confessions in 2004, the British rider was dropped from the rankings. So gold went to Quick-Step rider Rogers. Far from a fluke, The Flying Aussie also became World Time Trial Champion in 2004 and 2005.

14 August 2004, Olympic Road Race in Athens — Eyes full of tears (1). Paolo Bettini had previously predicted that the race for the Olympic gold would be a gamble. In the last-but-one of 17 laps Il Grillo peeled off from the Portuguese rider Sérgio Paulinho, whom he managed to beat in the sprint. A visibly delighted Bettini posed for the photographers after the finish. Twice in succession he also won the 2004 World Cup, the then UCI points classification designed to honour the most consistent rider in the ten major one-day races.

25 September 2005, Road World Championships in Madrid — 2005 was a Magical Year for the ‘Bomb of Balen’. E3 Harelbeke? Check! Tour of Flanders? Check! Paris -Roubaix? Check! Tour de France stages? Check & check! And to top it off, the world title in Madrid. Tom won a total 14 of the 35 team victories that year. A tour de force!

14 October 2006, Tour of Lombardy, Como — Eyes full of tears (2). A very emotional Paolo Bettini triumphed at the Tour of Lombardy in Como. La corsa delle foglie morte (“The Race of the Falling Leaves”), seldom was this nickname so appropriate, but also so very heartbreaking. Paolo’s brother, Sauro, had been killed in a traffic accident a week earlier. On the way, he briefly considered quitting, but he carried on competing. And he took first place. Head and index fingers stabbing the heavens, towards Sauro. ‘I wasn’t riding alone today. The man who always cheered me on at the roadside can no longer do so. But he was with me today.’

3 November 2007, Amstel Curaçao Race, Willemstad — Showtime at the start of the annual closing of the road racing season in the idyllic Netherlands Antilles. The Luxembourg brothers Andy and Fränk Schleck were competing along with two stars of that year’s Tour de France: winner Alberto Contador and remporteur du maillot vert (green jersey winner) Tom Boonen. The 80-kilometre race was followed by a week of having fun together with the other riders: beach tennis, a jet skiing competition and a barbecue in the fairy-tale setting of the Zanzibar Resort lounge beach. A great way to round off the season.

6 April 2008, Tour of Flanders, Kapelmuur, Geraardsbergen — Stijn Devolder turned out to be the most impressive cyclist in the Tour of Flanders in 2008 and 2009. Volderke paid tribute to the Quick-Step motto: ‘The first to break away can enjoy the blocking efforts of the rest of the team.’ See also Niki Terpstra later on. Although the bar could have been raised a bit higher for Patrick Lefevere: ‘Of course it’s nice when Stijn Devolder wins the Tour of Flanders, but I expect something more. When you consider how much he earns every year and his Tour of Flanders bonus on top of that, you can’t really say he’s a player who comes cheap. Focusing seriously once a year is not enough.’

10 May 2010, 3rd stage of the Giro d’Italia, Middelburg — So, this is what raw, undiluted joy looks like! After Wouter Weylandt’s sprint victory in the 17th stage of the 2008 Vuelta, another success was long overdue. Knee problems kept him out for a month in the winter of 2009-2010 and in the spring he often failed to come up to scratch. Until that 10th of May, in the winding streets of Middelburg. Unfortunately, it would be his final major victory. Barely one year later Weylandt met his death on the descent of the Passo del Bocco during the third stage of the Giro d’Italia. WW Special, forever 26 years old.

30 June 2011, Tour de France team presentation, Les Epesses — Led by French champion Sylvain Chavanel, the Quick-Step team mounts the podium during the showy presentation of the teams in the historical Puy du Fou theme park. No victories in that Tour, however. It was all downhill from there. No longer quite the rider he once used to be. Chavanel, alias “La Machine”, spent a total of five years riding for The Wolfpack, ensuring many memorable experiences in the process: stage victories at Paris-Nice, the Tour de France and a French road racing title.

8 April 2012, Paris -Roubaix, Roubaix track — Tom Boonen’s fourth and final victory in the Hell of the North At 53 kilometres from the Stade Vélodrome, Boonen began an unprecedented solo effort, gaining more than a minute and a half on the unexpected Frenchman Sébastien Turgot. Boonen came close to a fifth cobblestone trophy a number of times in the following years but, fortunately for Monsieur Paris-Roubaix, Roger De Vlaeminck, Tom never again managed to win Paris-Roubaix...

19 September 2012, World Time Trial Championships in Valkenburg — A welcome budget boost - courtesy of Czech businessman Zdenek Bakala - resulted in the arrival of a number of former HTC-High Road riders in the winter of 2011. Such as Tony Martin, here on his way to his second world time trial title. The team was not only stronger in general, but it also performed much better in the Grand Tours.

12 July 2013, 13th Tour de France stage, Saint-Amand-Montrond — 2013 was a great year for the team. Omega Pharma-Quick-Step scored 63 victories, to become the most successful team of the season, despite the fact that Tom Boonen missed most of it due to injuries. Mark Cavendish, euphoric after his second stage victory, scored 20 wins, including five stages and the Giro d’Italia points classification.

2 February 2014, World Cyclo-cross Championships, Hoogerheide — A hard-riding Zdeněk Štybar won his third cyclo-cross world title in 2014. Already in his third year with Quick-Step, Štybar was focusing more and more on a road racing career. And successfully so: he claimed a stage victory and the overall win in the 2013 Eneco Tour and became the fastest rider in the 7th stage of the Vuelta. 2015 was the year he won the Strade Bianche and a stage in the Tour de France, and four years later he was victorious in the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and E3 Harelbeke. Styby paved the way for other cyclo-cross cyclists harbouring road racing ambitions, such as Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel.

23 May 2014, 13th stage of the Giro d’Italia, Rivarolo Canavese — When the Colombian rider Rigoberto Urán joined the Omega Pharma-Quick-Step squad in 2014 he soon demonstrated his talent in the Giro. Urán won the time trial from Barbaresco to Barolo to become the first Colombian in history to don the pink jersey. He ended up leading for 3 stages and came 2nd in the final ranking in Milan. This made him the first OPQS rider to finish on a grand tour podium.

28 September 2014, Road World Championships in Ponferrada — With 7 kilometres left, Michal Kwiatkowski slipped away in the run-up to the Alto de Compostilla climb to become the first Pole ever to take the rainbow jersey. Earlier in the season he scored a success in the Strade Bianche and won the time trial in the Tour de Romandie, the Polish Time Trial Championship and a Tour of Britain stage. Podium placements included the Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

31 May 2015, 21st stage of the Giro d’Italia, Milan — ‘I wanted to try something out in those laps of a local circuit. I also had a perfect partner in crime with speed machine Luke Durbridge. He struck me as getting a bit jittery in the final kilometres, so I pushed him on into the lead. Despite his insistence, I didn’t overtake and was able to finish quite easily.’ This is how Iljo Keisse describes what was (probably) the most impressive win of his career. The rider from Ghent was initially a really impressive track cyclist, with 28 victories in the six-day races to his credit, but he later became the road captain who kept everything running smoothly. Keisse has been with the Quick-Step team since 2010 and is competing in his final cycling season this year.

9 July 2015, 6th Tour de France stage, Le Havre — The Quick-Step team has also had some memorable non-win race experiences. Everything started off well at the 2015 Tour France, with Tony Martin, Mark Cavendish and Zdeněk Štybar taking stage wins. Until yellow-jersey-wearing Martin took a nasty tumble in the last kilometres of the stage to Le Havre, breaking his collarbone and having to bow out of the race. Who can ever forget the image of Tony being pushed over the line by his Etixx-Quick-Step teammates?

22 November 2015, Six Days of Flanders-Ghent, ’t Kuipke — In the midst of the turbulent ’t Kuipke cycling track in Ghent, Michael Mørkøv flungs his arms in the air after winning the 75th Six Days of Flanders-Ghent together with Iljo Keisse. Mørkøv built up an impressive track career, with three world titles and an Olympic title (2020) in team racing, but with the Lefevere team he was mainly indispensable in his role as sprint lead-out. Just ask Elia Viviani, Sam Bennett and Mark Cavendish. Or Marcel Kittel, who by then had already retired from cycling, calling him the ‘best lead-out in the history of cycling’ back in 2021.

9 October 2016, Team Time Trial World Championships in Doha, Qatar — The Etixx-Quick-Step team won its third of a total of four world titles in the team time trial category on the desert roads around Doha. Bob Jungels, Marcel Kittel, Yves Lampaert, Tony Martin, Niki Terpstra and Julien Vermote enjoyed an 11-second lead over the BMC team. Martin took the world time trial champion title for the third and last time that year. A score of 54 road wins was achieved in 2016, taking the team to 550 victories.

2 April 2017, Tour of Flanders, Oudenaarde — After lean pickings with BMC in the previous year, Philippe Gilbert switched over to Quick-Step Floors in the winter of 2016. Questions were initially raised about Fast Phil’s move, but he managed to surprise both friend and foe with victories in the Tour of Flanders and the Amstel Gold Race. Two years later, Gilbert made history when he also succeeded in winning Paris-Roubaix for Deceuninck-Quick-Step, adding four of the five Monuments to his belt. The tassel in Milan-San Remo is the only prize to elude him in the end. He never came any closer than two third places in 2008 and 2011.

24 October 2017, 6th stage of the Tour of Guangxi, Guilin — The year 2017 and the Tour of Guangxi was held in the south of China for the first time, so the UCI’s aim of expanding cycling eastwards became a reality. Fernando Gaviria, celebrating for the fourth time here in China, delivered Quick- Step Floors a whole host of successes that year. Apart from all his stage victories, the Giro d’Italia was also were he won the first points jersey for Colombia in a Grand Tour, the maglia ciclamino (purple jersey).

15 September 2018, 20th stage of the Vuelta, Collada de la Gallina (Santuario de Canolich), Andorra — And here’s Enric Mas in the Vuelta! The young Spaniard also took second place in the final ranking, 1’46” behind winner Simon Yates. A feat he would effortlessly repeat in 2021, but by then Mas was in his second season with a different team. Although Deceuninck-Quick-Step is still close to his heart, as underscored by this tweet on his move to Movistar in 2019: ‘Thank you @PatLefevere for everything.’

21 July 2019, 15th stage of the Tour de France, Foix — The Year of the Wolf? 2019 was the year Julian Alaphilippe enjoyed his first finest hours. First he took Milan-San Remo as his first Monument and then went on to triumph in the Strade Bianche and La Flèche Wallone. But his most memorable experiences were during the 106th Tour de France. When he took two stages, and wore the yellow jersey for a total of fourteen days, causing the excited French public and the team to start dreaming of more to come. His claim to an overall win in La Grande Boucle, however, had to be put on hold two days before Paris … At the end of the season, he was awarded the Vélo d’Or, which is quite a consolation prize.

22 February 2020, 4th stage of the Tour of the Algarve, Alto do Malhão — We don’t have to introduce Remco Evenepoel to you anymore. In his first year with the team, he won the European Time Trial Championships and the Clásica San Sebastián, among others. In 2020 it was back to the drawing board with an overall win in the Tours of San Juan, Burgos and Poland. Including two stages and the overall win in the Tour of the Algarve, where we see Remco here on the podium together with Dries De Bondt. A nasty fall in the Tour of Lombardy ended his season early on but, the following year, Remco was back in winning ways…

21 October 2020, 17th stage of the Giro d’Italia, Madonna di Campiglio — After March 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic played complete havoc with the cycling calendar. All major spring races were dropped and the May Giro d’Italia was moved to the autumn. This is when 22-year-old João Almeida drew attention for the first time. The young Portuguese rider took the pink jersey after the first weekend, and then wore it for no less than fifteen days. Almeida eventually buckled under the pressure, but he did finish with a very respectable fourth in the final ranking.

26 March 2021, E3 Saxo Bank Classic, Harelbeke — Excitement and a punishing team effort by Deceuninck- Quick-Step in last year’s E3 Harelbeke. After the Boigneberg climb, the Danish rider Kasper Asgreen launched his first breakaway at 67 kilometres from the finishing line. With 12 kilometres still to go, he was caught up by six riders, including his teammates Florian Sénéchal and Zdeněk Štybar. In the streets of Harelbeke, Asgreen threw in his final trump card and ended up with a double solo. A few days later, he was celebrating again. In the Tour of Flanders he succeeded in beating Mathieu van der Poel.

29 June 2021, 4de stage of the Tour de France, Fougères — The Year of the Comeback (1). After Mark Cavendish was picked up by the Lefevere team in 2021, the Manx Express staged one of the most notable comebacks in cycling history. The British cyclist’s earlier sprint victories during the Tours in Turkey and Belgium were complemented by winning no fewer than four stages and the green jersey in the Tour de France. So doing he equalled Eddy Merckx’s cycling record. Everyone still remembers the emotional images after his first stage victory.

31 August 2021, 16th stage of the Vuelta, Santa Cruz de Bezana — The Year of the Comeback (2). After Fabio Jakobsen looked death in the eye in the 2020 Tour of Poland, he bounced back stronger than ever in 2021. After two stages in the Tour de Wallonie, Jakobsen astounded everyone by picking up three stages and the green jersey in the Vuelta. ‘Finishing here in Santiago de Compostela is my greatest victory,’ Jakobsen said after the final ceremony. ‘As I got closer to the finishing line, I started waving to the supporters who were calling out my name.’

26 September 2021, Road World Championships, Leuven — So this is what a Flemish popular celebration looks like, even if not everyone in the crowded streets of Leuven is an example of fair play. Julian Alaphilippe rode to his second world title in a row in this unique setting, after an incredibly exciting race amidst a fantastically noisy atmosphere. Which became even louder once Loulou appeared on Ladeuzeplein, driving the cycling fans crazy and acting like an accomplished master of ceremonies. Conclusion and summary by Alaphilippe himself: ‘Magical, this was a real race. In the country of the bicycle.’

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