It would have made for interesting viewing to be a fly on the wall when Omega Pharma-Quickstep assembled for their post-race briefing on Saturday night.
Arriving in top form after a strong showing at the Tour of Qatar, the Belgian super team were expected to light up the Omloop on home soil, but Niki Terpstra’s fifth place was as good as it got in the opening race of the weekend, and Tom Boonen, expected to contend for victory, finished a lowly 33rd.
But whatever words were exchanged certainly did the trick, and while Boonen’s Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne victory was the chief headline, it was achieved thanks to having five riders in a ten-man escape.
The Belgian team knows how to win these races better than any and if the version we saw at Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne shows up for the rest of the Classics, Boonen will be licking his lips in anticipation of Classics domination.
