Omloop Het Nieuwsblad

Saturday 26 February | Flanders, Belgium

- Chris Marshall-Bell

KEY INFORMATION

THE COURSE

Mostly unchanged from last year, the men tackle 15 bergs and nine cobbled sections across 204km. The women face nine hills and five cobbled sections by comparison on their 128km journey around east Flanders. TV: Eurosport 2: men’s race, 13h30 - 16h30; women’s race 16h30 - 17h30

The Spring Classics get under way this weekend with the task facing every men’s WorldTour team being the same as every campaign for the past decade: how to stop the might and force of Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl.

Omloop Het Nieuwsblad with its successive bergs and cobbles comes first on Saturday, followed by the flatter but cobble-featured Kuurne-Brussels- Kuurne on Sunday in what is traditionally referred to as the Opening Weekend.

The women’s race also kicks off the conventional northern European calendar for the female peloton, with Omloop van het Hageland on Sunday.

Last year’s men’s winner Davide Ballerini is not on the start list for Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl, thought to be due to only recently recovering from Covid-19, but the Belgian team staggeringly, though not unexpectedly, can count on six of their seven riders as possible winners. They include former victor Zdenek Stybar and Yves Lampaert, the latter second in 2020.

“How do you stop Quick Step?” queried Trek-Segafredo’s DS Steven de Jongh to CW. “It’s hard, obviously. They have proved over the last 10 years, if not for longer, that they are always up there.