The bunch finish to Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne on Sunday was pure, unadulterated chaos. There was road furniture, mixed with crashes, mixed with shoulder barging, mixed with tight corners and narrow roads. Yet emerging through it all, with impeccable organisation and calm, was the lead-out train of Alpecin-Deceuninck: Jonas Rickaert and Kaden Groves with Jasper Philipsen sat tight to their wheels. Behind, they scrambled and fought for position, but when the Belgian's sprint was launched, he left the rest of the peloton in his wake. A textbook, picture-perfect victory for Philipsen after an exemplary team performance. It's fair to say that Alpecin-Deceuninck know what they are doing when it comes to the Classics.
This wasn’t the first time in Opening Weekend that they impressed with their collective strength. During Omloop het Nieuwsblad on Saturday when the race crucially split over the Molenberg and the likes of pre-race favourite Wout van Aert of Visma-Lease a Bike were out of position, Alpecin-Deceuninck showed power in numbers. Xandro Meurisse, Robbe Ghys and Gianni Vermeersch were immediately in formation on the right side of the split, riding hard on the front and forcing a scrambling Visma-Lease a Bike to chase. Compared to Alpecin, every other team looked to be on the back foot at crucial points in the race.
Image: Chris Auld
At Omloop in the end, Philipsen was narrowly outsprinted in Ninove and finished in third place, but his and his teammate’s performances will instil huge confidence in the team for the rest of the Classics campaign. Despite his status as a bunch sprinter, Philipsen himself looked impressively strong over the Muur van Geraardsbergen at Omloop, seemingly never at risk of being distanced from the peloton on the steep gradients. With the bergs he will face at races like the Tour of Flanders in just a few weeks’ time, his climbing prowess is an undoubtedly positive sign – plus the 27-year-old backed this up with his sprint victory in Kuurne the following day.
Alpecin-Deceuninck hasn’t got this far with a team of superstars, either. Riders like Meurisse, Ghys and Vermeersch are talented domestiques who don’t, on paper, have the same palmarès as riders on Visma or UAE Team Emirates-XRG. They do, however, know how to finesse the Belgian roads they learnt their trade on. They know when and where positioning is crucial, and they are always there when it matters. This means that they rarely waste energy on chasing back to the peloton, and it means the likes of Philipsen can have an armchair ride to the finish, following wheels until it is time for him to seal the deal with his final sprint.
When comparing their Opening Weekend campaign to Visma-Lease a Bike who, at times, looked messy and exhibited questionable tactics in both Omloop and Kuurne (Matteo Jorgenson admitted on Sunday that the team “just hadn’t clicked yet”), Alpecin-Deceuninck will be optimistic and satisfied when looking to the next few races. And they still haven’t even played their trump card.
Image: Chris Auld
That card will come in the looming, six-foot tall, broad form of Mathieu van der Poel, the team’s megastar who is so far yet to compete this year. The Dutch rider recently announced that he would make a surprise season debut at the midweek semi-Classic Le Samyn – perhaps a way to test his legs on the cobbles before the crucial block of E3 Saxo Classic, Flanders and Paris-Roubaix in April (Van der Poel won all three of these races in 2024). Once Van der Poel is thrown into the mix alongside Philipsen and his team of Belgian Classics experts, Alpecin-Deceunick could well be unstoppable. At De Ronde (and potentially Roubaix, though this is unlikely) Tadej Pogačar will, of course, be present to pose a challenge, but he's the only real danger to Alpecin's ascendency.
For the team bosses Philip and Christoph Roodhooft, the state of Alpecin-Deceuninck at this point in the season will be making them very happy indeed. For the teams who need to try and beat the likes of Van der Poel and Philipsen over the next few months, though, there’s serious work to be done. Alarm bells should be sounding Van Aert and Visma-Lease a Bike who are faced with a problem that might not be solvable in the few weeks that remain until Flanders and Roubaix. This Opening Weekend threw up a number of surprises, but there’s one certainty: Alpecin-Deceuninck means business, and they’re only just getting started.
Cover image: Chris Auld/Zac Williams
