Backspin: Sagan says Quick-Step may be unstoppable if riders don’t wake up

What a difference a year makes!

Twelve months ago all buzz surrounded reigning Olympic road race champion Greg van Avermaet (BMC Racing) and back-to-back world champion — now three straight — Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe), had already exchanged a series of winning blows in an epic string of ‘Cobbled Classic’ clashes.

Other than Sagan’s win at Gent-Wevelgem last week — his third at the Flemish pre-cursor to Flanders, and van Avermaet’s third at E3 Harelbeke, the two have been rather absent from the podium in this year’s ‘Spring Classics’ to date.

While the Spring Classic officially kicked off with Vincenzo Nibali’s (Bahrain-Merida) solo victory at Milan-San Remo more than two weeks ago followed by Tiesj Benoot’s (Lotto Soudal) win at Strade Bianche, the season is now in full swing in the shadow of Flemish Cycling week.

One rider that has been making headlines is 33-year-old Dutchman Niki Terpstra of Belgian-registered UCI WorldTour team Quick-Step Floors.

Terpstra has already packed on three wins to his palmarés dating back to Le Samyn in February and most recently E3 (March 23) and a sensational solo win at Tour of Flanders on Easter Sunday.

However, the three-time national road race champion is not the only Quick-Step rider racking up wins in 2018. Italian sprinter and Olympic omnium champion Elia Viviani is in the mix with six victories this season, including an overall win at the Dubai Tour in February, as well as fellow sprinter Fernando Gaviria’s four and a couple from Julian Alaphilippe, including an opening stage win at Itzulia Basque Country on Monday.

Six other riders have put runs on the board, including a pair of wins from 21-year-old Colombian Álvaro Hodeg and one from 26-year-old Belgian Yves Lampaert at Dwars door Vlaanderen last week.

All this has caught the attention of Sagan, who told Cycling Weekly’s Gregor Brown the field better wake up before Quick-Step continues to catch them napping and continue its dominance.

“I am very happy about my performance,” said Sagan following his sixth-place result in the race known in Flanders as Ronde van Vlaanderen. “Lot of things I couldn’t change. I am glad I did my maximum and this is the result.

“I think the season is still continuing. It is very hard to race from my position in the group and if other riders don’t wake up, it’s going to be like this.

“Quick-Step is a great team, they have many riders at a good level — they made a great race,” the 2016 winner continued. “The other teams didn’t respect the situation and collaborate. It’s not just me they need to beat … like this Quick-Step will go and win all the races.”

With Paris-Roubaix looming, one can only tip the former 2014 winner Terpstra as an odds on favourite, despite not having finished the two previous editions of ‘The Hell of the North.”

For full Flanders men’s race results, click here.

Boels-Dolmans went one-two at the 153.3-kilometre Women’s Tour of Flanders on Sunday. It was the second WorldTour win of the season for the 2016 Olympic road race champion Anna van der Breggen (NED), and second runner up result of the week for her fellow Dutch teammate Amy Pieters, who also took silver at Dwars door Vlaanderen four days earlier after winning Ronde van Drenthe two weeks prior.

Pieters out-sprinted Annemiek van Vleuten (Mitchelton-Scott) for second in the a nine-rider chase group more than a minute (+1:08) adrift.

“This is a very important win,” said 27-year-old van der Breggen. “Beforehand, I couldn’t have imagined to win the Tour of Flanders the way I did. It’s very cool to win this great race in Belgium.

“The Tour of Flanders is a monument and I consider this victory a very big one,” she continued. “That we also got second place with Amy only adds to the party.”

Pieters was also thrilled with the day’s result.

“This was great,” said Pieters. “As a team, we managed to keep the race under control the entire day. Of course I was already thrilled that Anna took the victory here, and that I can finish it off by taking second place makes me incredibly happy.”

Two other Boels riders finished inside the top 10, including world champion Chantal Blaak in fifth and Megan Guarnier in 10th.

With her second-place result, 26-year-old Pieters takes over the lead in the overall Women’s WorldTour standings, with the Amstel Gold Race on deck as the next UCI Women’s WorldTour on April 15.