Levi Leipheimer entered the race as the protected GC rider for the team and he had on the day finished second to Contador on Stage 3 to Mirador del Portero at the same time as the Spaniard. The stage was later awarded to the American once CAS handed down its decision on February 6th which meant Omega Pharma won the first three stages of the race. Chicchi had lost the leaders jersey to Contador following the mountain stage but this should have been handed to his teammate and not the Spaniard. Following the annullement of the Contador’s results the Belgian team held the leaders jersey from start to finish, won the first four stages and took home the final stage through the sprint of Boonen as they wrapped up the race with the fingers all over it.
The first wins and overall victory of the season were quickly added to in Qatar. Boonen picked up where he left off in Argentina as he won Stage 1 of the Tour of Qatar. With the six stage of the race all flat, this is race that the sprinters generally win the general classification. Boonen led the general and points classifications for the entirety of the race as he also won Stage 4 and finished second on Stage 3 behind world champion Mark Cavendish. Alongside Boonen’s control of the race and classifications wins, there was the first team classification win of the season in 2012. While Boonen was winning in the Middle East, Andrew Fenn was in Spain winning his first races of the season. Fenn won Trofeo Palma and the Trofeo Migjorn which were the first European successes in the young season. These races where Fenn’s first wins for the team after he moved across from An Post-Sean Kelly and looked to concrete on the road after numerous medals as a junior track cyclist.
Boonen’s prowess in Qatar and Argentina had led some to speculate on his chances at Flanders and Roubaix. Before the classics were in full spring came several more wins in Europe and again in the Middle East. Ciolek won Stage 4 of Volta ao Agave for his only road win of the season and in 2013 will no longer ride for the team as he has moved across to MTN-Qhuebek. The day after Ciolek’s win Peter Velits wrapped up the overall victory at the Tour of Oman as the team ensured it left the Middle East with both the Oman and Qatar overall classifications and Velits won his first GC. By the end of February the team had three general classifications and several stage wins which in comparison to last year, was a great success.
Three of the new recruits had notched their first wins at Omega Pharma and the languid 2011 season seemed some way off. Another new signing Michał Kwiatkowski was the next rider to open their account at Omega Pharma by winning the prologue of Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen in what proved to be another success for the team. Chicchi won Stage 1 but it was the young Julien Vermote who won the overall and the young riders classifications for his first professional win. At Paris-Nice Boonen won another race as he won Stage 2 in Orléans for three wins in three days in two different races and two different countries. After the brief foray into France and another win, it was back to Belgium where Chicchi won two more races at Nokere Koerse and the Handzame Classic.
The image which encapsulates Niki Terpstra’s season is he and Boonen bursting clear of the peloton on the cobbles of Roubaix where he finished fifth. Terpstra was a multi national champion on the track before his road career begun in earnest. He is a two time Dutch road champion as well and proved in 2012 that he can also win one day races outside of national races as he won Dwars door Vlaanderen and the late season fun fest, Amstel Curaçao Race. A third place at Paris-Tours and sixth at Flanders was a sign of his continual development as a road rider and key domestique to Boonen with Sylvain Chavanel who now has several big top ten finishes on his palmares. Terpstra also rode in the winning squad which competed in the TTT at the World Championships. The Dutchmen's victory at Dwars door Vlaanderen was the beginning of a magical end to March and beginning of April with Boonen’s majestic performance on the cobbles and Chavanel’s win at Three Days de Panne.
Chavanel’s palmarès reads impressively without any big classics. A four time ITT champion of France and once as the road champion, three Tour de France stages and two days in yellow plus two combativity awards is impressive and enviable without being breathtaking. In 2012 Chavanel won his first overall classification since 2005 which was a change from his results in recent years. A second place at Flanders in 2012 was his best placing at a Monument and symbolic of the determinism that he has shown across his career and seen him wear the leaders jersey of the Tour and Vuelta de España. Chavanel won Stage 3b at Three Days de Panne and the team won its second teams classification at the conclusion of the race as it prepared for the cobbles.
Two important races which arrive on the calendar just a week before the Tour of Flanders are E3 Harelbeke and Gent-Wevelgem. The first of these is E3 and in 2012 was elevated to World Tour status for the first time in its 55 year history. After 4:51:59 of racing the winner was Boonen who became the most successful rider at the race, he overtook Rik Van Looy to record his fifth victory. The success of E3 made Boonen the favourite for Flanders the next week and was to begin the first of four big Flemish cobbled races that had never been conquered by one rider in a single year. Boonen’s record breaking and tying Spring saw him tie the number of Flanders , Gent-Wevelgem and Roubaix wins, three, three and four respectively, while simultaneously becoming the first rider to win all four races in a calendar year and the first rider to win two Flanders-Roubaix doubles.
At Gent-Wevelgem two days after the first Flemish cobbled race of the season Boonen once again won a sprint. After 234km’s Boonen beat home Peter Sagan and Matti Breschel which was enough for him to take the lead the World Rider individual rider rankings and saw Omega Pharma-Quick Step and Belgium also lead the Team and National categories. Although the first two cobbled races of the Flemish calendar was impressive this was only a sign of things to come. The win at Gent-Wevelgem had been in 2011 his season highlight; in 2012 Boonen’s season highlight was to be all the cobbles of Belgium. April first may be a day of jokes but the ride by Boonen at the Ronde was totally devoid of humour to his rivals. Having broken away with the Italian duo of Alessandro Ballan, a past winner of the race, and Filippo Pozzato Boonen won the sprint after five editions without a win. The win was impressive but it was at Paris-Roubaix where Boonen flexed his muscles.
With Fabian Cancellara crashing out of Flanders the battle royale that have become common affairs in April were put on hold in 2012. The performance by Ballan and Pozzato showed in Flanders that they may be able to match it with Boonen in Roubaix. However it was a totally different tale as Boonen and Terpstra sped away from the peloton with 60kms to go. Boonen soon dropped his teammate and only looked like increasing his speed. Incredibly the team did not have a single puncture on the notoriously tough cobbles which riders try to counteract by double taping their handlebars and wearing gloves. Boonen had no such luxuries in his winning solo ride as he recorded his fourth Paris-Roubaix victory.
After the success of the cobbles the team once again focused on the stages races in the lead up to the Giro d’Italia. At the Presidential Tour of Turkey there was a stage win and a mountains classification courtesy of Iljo Keisse and Marco Bandera. There was only one Grand Tour stage win in 2012 which was a breakthrough victory by Dario Cataldo on the queen stage at the Vuelta. With Mark Cavendish joining the team in 2013 the Grand Tour stage win count should make up a larger part of the team victories and add another string to the Omega bow. Team Sky were the standout Grand Tour and stage race team of the season but it was the one day events where Omega Pharma-Quick Step really excelled but the shorter week stage races were also good to the Belgian team. In May with no Giro stages or classification wins, the two time Cyclo-cross World Champion Zdeněk Štybar won his first road race at Four Days of Dunkirk. Later in the month Tony Martin won Stage 4 of the Tour of Belgium which set up his overall win. Štybar won again on the road as he crossed the line first on Stage 3 at Tour of Pologne for the team’s only win in July.
In August there was success on numerous fronts with Boonen back to winning ways. The month started with TTT victory on Stage 2b of the Tour de l’Ain before taking out the team classification at Eneco Tour to make it two team victories in four days. In the USA Levi Leipheimer won Stage 6 of the Tour of Utah which was his last win for the team as his admission to doping led to his firing from the team. Back in Belgium Tom Boonen won Stage 1 along with the overall and points classifications at the World Ports Classic race.
The highlight of September was the win at the world championships. After a prolonged absence from the worlds, the TTT was reintroduced as the stand alone trade race event. The margin was over three minutes with Boonen, Terpstra, Chavanel, Martin, Vandewalle and Peter Velits on the winning team. This was the last team win for the season but it was also the grandest win by the team in 2012. Martin also won the ITT and left the meet as a dual world champion. At the Vuelta on Stage 4 Martin was outsprinted by Simon Clarke, narrowly missing the win but would repeat his overall win at the Tour of Beijing. After the TTT success Boonen once again won in Belgium by taking out his first Paris-Brussels. The Course des Deux Capitales was once ridden as an early season spring classic and Boonen’s win was further proof that in 2012, he was king of the cobbles. At the Tour de l'Eurometropole Guillaume Van Keirsbulck won his first classification by taking out the young rider category after previously being on three of the ITT stage winning teams.
In China and France there was a successful end to the season with Martin recording the only wins of October by the team. After entering the race as a favourite for back to back wins, Martin did just that. His win on Stage 2 came about through a breakaway for his first road win in three years. Martin is a renowned time trialist and with no ITT in the race he would need to win a road stage. After taking the win he never let the leaders jersey go, wrapping up his second win in Beijing by 40 seconds and the last general classification in a highly successful return to winning ways.
The first wins and overall victory of the season were quickly added to in Qatar. Boonen picked up where he left off in Argentina as he won Stage 1 of the Tour of Qatar. With the six stage of the race all flat, this is race that the sprinters generally win the general classification. Boonen led the general and points classifications for the entirety of the race as he also won Stage 4 and finished second on Stage 3 behind world champion Mark Cavendish. Alongside Boonen’s control of the race and classifications wins, there was the first team classification win of the season in 2012. While Boonen was winning in the Middle East, Andrew Fenn was in Spain winning his first races of the season. Fenn won Trofeo Palma and the Trofeo Migjorn which were the first European successes in the young season. These races where Fenn’s first wins for the team after he moved across from An Post-Sean Kelly and looked to concrete on the road after numerous medals as a junior track cyclist.
Boonen’s prowess in Qatar and Argentina had led some to speculate on his chances at Flanders and Roubaix. Before the classics were in full spring came several more wins in Europe and again in the Middle East. Ciolek won Stage 4 of Volta ao Agave for his only road win of the season and in 2013 will no longer ride for the team as he has moved across to MTN-Qhuebek. The day after Ciolek’s win Peter Velits wrapped up the overall victory at the Tour of Oman as the team ensured it left the Middle East with both the Oman and Qatar overall classifications and Velits won his first GC. By the end of February the team had three general classifications and several stage wins which in comparison to last year, was a great success.
Three of the new recruits had notched their first wins at Omega Pharma and the languid 2011 season seemed some way off. Another new signing Michał Kwiatkowski was the next rider to open their account at Omega Pharma by winning the prologue of Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen in what proved to be another success for the team. Chicchi won Stage 1 but it was the young Julien Vermote who won the overall and the young riders classifications for his first professional win. At Paris-Nice Boonen won another race as he won Stage 2 in Orléans for three wins in three days in two different races and two different countries. After the brief foray into France and another win, it was back to Belgium where Chicchi won two more races at Nokere Koerse and the Handzame Classic.
The image which encapsulates Niki Terpstra’s season is he and Boonen bursting clear of the peloton on the cobbles of Roubaix where he finished fifth. Terpstra was a multi national champion on the track before his road career begun in earnest. He is a two time Dutch road champion as well and proved in 2012 that he can also win one day races outside of national races as he won Dwars door Vlaanderen and the late season fun fest, Amstel Curaçao Race. A third place at Paris-Tours and sixth at Flanders was a sign of his continual development as a road rider and key domestique to Boonen with Sylvain Chavanel who now has several big top ten finishes on his palmares. Terpstra also rode in the winning squad which competed in the TTT at the World Championships. The Dutchmen's victory at Dwars door Vlaanderen was the beginning of a magical end to March and beginning of April with Boonen’s majestic performance on the cobbles and Chavanel’s win at Three Days de Panne.
Chavanel’s palmarès reads impressively without any big classics. A four time ITT champion of France and once as the road champion, three Tour de France stages and two days in yellow plus two combativity awards is impressive and enviable without being breathtaking. In 2012 Chavanel won his first overall classification since 2005 which was a change from his results in recent years. A second place at Flanders in 2012 was his best placing at a Monument and symbolic of the determinism that he has shown across his career and seen him wear the leaders jersey of the Tour and Vuelta de España. Chavanel won Stage 3b at Three Days de Panne and the team won its second teams classification at the conclusion of the race as it prepared for the cobbles.
Two important races which arrive on the calendar just a week before the Tour of Flanders are E3 Harelbeke and Gent-Wevelgem. The first of these is E3 and in 2012 was elevated to World Tour status for the first time in its 55 year history. After 4:51:59 of racing the winner was Boonen who became the most successful rider at the race, he overtook Rik Van Looy to record his fifth victory. The success of E3 made Boonen the favourite for Flanders the next week and was to begin the first of four big Flemish cobbled races that had never been conquered by one rider in a single year. Boonen’s record breaking and tying Spring saw him tie the number of Flanders , Gent-Wevelgem and Roubaix wins, three, three and four respectively, while simultaneously becoming the first rider to win all four races in a calendar year and the first rider to win two Flanders-Roubaix doubles.
At Gent-Wevelgem two days after the first Flemish cobbled race of the season Boonen once again won a sprint. After 234km’s Boonen beat home Peter Sagan and Matti Breschel which was enough for him to take the lead the World Rider individual rider rankings and saw Omega Pharma-Quick Step and Belgium also lead the Team and National categories. Although the first two cobbled races of the Flemish calendar was impressive this was only a sign of things to come. The win at Gent-Wevelgem had been in 2011 his season highlight; in 2012 Boonen’s season highlight was to be all the cobbles of Belgium. April first may be a day of jokes but the ride by Boonen at the Ronde was totally devoid of humour to his rivals. Having broken away with the Italian duo of Alessandro Ballan, a past winner of the race, and Filippo Pozzato Boonen won the sprint after five editions without a win. The win was impressive but it was at Paris-Roubaix where Boonen flexed his muscles.
With Fabian Cancellara crashing out of Flanders the battle royale that have become common affairs in April were put on hold in 2012. The performance by Ballan and Pozzato showed in Flanders that they may be able to match it with Boonen in Roubaix. However it was a totally different tale as Boonen and Terpstra sped away from the peloton with 60kms to go. Boonen soon dropped his teammate and only looked like increasing his speed. Incredibly the team did not have a single puncture on the notoriously tough cobbles which riders try to counteract by double taping their handlebars and wearing gloves. Boonen had no such luxuries in his winning solo ride as he recorded his fourth Paris-Roubaix victory.
After the success of the cobbles the team once again focused on the stages races in the lead up to the Giro d’Italia. At the Presidential Tour of Turkey there was a stage win and a mountains classification courtesy of Iljo Keisse and Marco Bandera. There was only one Grand Tour stage win in 2012 which was a breakthrough victory by Dario Cataldo on the queen stage at the Vuelta. With Mark Cavendish joining the team in 2013 the Grand Tour stage win count should make up a larger part of the team victories and add another string to the Omega bow. Team Sky were the standout Grand Tour and stage race team of the season but it was the one day events where Omega Pharma-Quick Step really excelled but the shorter week stage races were also good to the Belgian team. In May with no Giro stages or classification wins, the two time Cyclo-cross World Champion Zdeněk Štybar won his first road race at Four Days of Dunkirk. Later in the month Tony Martin won Stage 4 of the Tour of Belgium which set up his overall win. Štybar won again on the road as he crossed the line first on Stage 3 at Tour of Pologne for the team’s only win in July.
In August there was success on numerous fronts with Boonen back to winning ways. The month started with TTT victory on Stage 2b of the Tour de l’Ain before taking out the team classification at Eneco Tour to make it two team victories in four days. In the USA Levi Leipheimer won Stage 6 of the Tour of Utah which was his last win for the team as his admission to doping led to his firing from the team. Back in Belgium Tom Boonen won Stage 1 along with the overall and points classifications at the World Ports Classic race.
The highlight of September was the win at the world championships. After a prolonged absence from the worlds, the TTT was reintroduced as the stand alone trade race event. The margin was over three minutes with Boonen, Terpstra, Chavanel, Martin, Vandewalle and Peter Velits on the winning team. This was the last team win for the season but it was also the grandest win by the team in 2012. Martin also won the ITT and left the meet as a dual world champion. At the Vuelta on Stage 4 Martin was outsprinted by Simon Clarke, narrowly missing the win but would repeat his overall win at the Tour of Beijing. After the TTT success Boonen once again won in Belgium by taking out his first Paris-Brussels. The Course des Deux Capitales was once ridden as an early season spring classic and Boonen’s win was further proof that in 2012, he was king of the cobbles. At the Tour de l'Eurometropole Guillaume Van Keirsbulck won his first classification by taking out the young rider category after previously being on three of the ITT stage winning teams.
In China and France there was a successful end to the season with Martin recording the only wins of October by the team. After entering the race as a favourite for back to back wins, Martin did just that. His win on Stage 2 came about through a breakaway for his first road win in three years. Martin is a renowned time trialist and with no ITT in the race he would need to win a road stage. After taking the win he never let the leaders jersey go, wrapping up his second win in Beijing by 40 seconds and the last general classification in a highly successful return to winning ways.
Top Five Results
Paris-Roubaix Tom Boonen
Gent-Wevelgem Tom Boonen
Tour of Flanders Tom Boonen
UCI World Championships TTT
Vuelta de España Stage 16 Dario Cataldo
Disappointing Riders: With so many wins recorded by numerous riders it is hard to pinpoint a clutch of disappointing riders but there are a few whose 2012 will not be looked back upon fondly. Leipheimer is an obvious candidate after his admission of doping ostensibly throughout his career but on the road Matt Brammeier, Bert Grabsch, Jérôme Pineau and the Velits all had underwhelming seasons in comparison to their teammates. Brammeier is off to Champion Systems next season where he hopes to reignite his career. With only a handful of riders joining the squad in 2013 these riders can put any disappointing results behind them without too much pressure from their teammates to perform or be pushed out to the margins.
Breakthrough Riders: Boonen has been on the cycling radar for close to ten years but his resurgence in 2012 on the cobbles was a breakthrough after several years of disappointing results in his favourite races. Zdeněk Štybar had his first road wins and looks likely to continue his transformation from Cyclo-cross world champion to winning road racer much like Lars Boom at Rabobank who has made a successful switch over. Fenn won his first races in a positive showing after his off season transfer to the team and will be a rider to watch in the future. Other young stars on the squad also had success and the likes of Guillaume Van Keirsbulck, Julian Vermote and Michał Kwiatkowski whose breakthrough wins this season means they will all be watched a little more closely in 2013.
2013? The biggest change to the team in 2013 will be the addition of Mark Cavendish who will guarantee wins but will also affect the approach of the team to certain races. Cav has been the most consistent winner in the peloton over the last 3 or so seasons and he only looks like continuing his winning ways. With several ex-HTC-Highroad teammates on the Omega Pharma-Quick Step team it won’t be a total foray into the unknown for the Manx Missile. After the disappointment of Grand Tour results, Cav will be a welcome addition as it appears the team will focus on stage wins at the Tour and perhaps mount a GC challenge at the other two three week races. After his fine season, Boonen will be under pressure to replicate his fine 2012 but whether or not this happens remains to be unseen but he has shown previously that he can sustain two seasons of top form on the cobbles after his 2005/6 triumphs.
Gianni Meersman is an exciting prospect who joins from rival Lotto-Belisol but is one of just three signings. None of Cav’s Sky lead out train followed him across the channel to Belgium and therefore there will be much off season training focused on retuning and refining the lead-out train. Chicchi is off to an Italian team and Ciolek is off to South Africa which is a loss as both riders would have been very welcome members in a train. Martin and Grabsch will be two riders familiar with how Cav likes his train but they will only be fifth of six wheel with a lead out man yet to be finalised. The Oman and Qatar tours look likely to be used as prime training races to ensure by the time of the Giro and the cobbles, there is familiarity between the riders and Cav.
The fallout of the USADA Armstrong case may not occupy front pages any more but tits affect is still rippling across the cycling world. At Quick Step this has been felt most acutely by Leipheimer’s admission to doping and subsequent firing. The team will be hoping that no other names are linked to future findings and the American is the only casualty of the messy affair.
The fallout of the USADA Armstrong case may not occupy front pages any more but tits affect is still rippling across the cycling world. At Quick Step this has been felt most acutely by Leipheimer’s admission to doping and subsequent firing. The team will be hoping that no other names are linked to future findings and the American is the only casualty of the messy affair.
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