All images: Jérémy-Günther-Heinz Jähnick (Wikimedia Commons)
It's been, and it's gone. We count down to Omloop in anticipation of the Classics and all too soon it's upon us - and what an edition of the race it was, both on the men's and women's side. With plenty to chew over from both Omloop Nieuwsblad and a bit more for good measure from Sunday's racing, here are a few takeaways from the curtain-raisers in Belgium.
What a difference a day makes
When I made my notes after Omloop, preparing to write this piece, I was fully prepared to write this particular subheading as something along the lines of ‘Philipsen and Alpecin miss the mark once again.’ If you took the season so far up until close of play Saturday, it looks pretty torrid on paper for Alpecin-Deceuninck. Zero wins to show for the several weeks of competition, and Philipsen missing out on every sprint victory at the UAE Tour, eclipsed by the power of Jonathan Milan and Tim Merlier.
Not only surviving the punchy cobbled climbs of Omloop, but having his team pile on the pressure at the front of the bunch in the latter stages of the race, only to find himself missing out on the line one again, may have felt like a body blow for Philipsen. However, he continued to prove himself a very capable Classics rider on Saturday, then backed up his performance with a win at Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne on Sunday to take away two top three finishes, a World Tour victory, and a cuddly donkey to boot. Not bad going for a weekend's work.
Of course, the UAE Tour isn’t the goal for Philipsen and his team and arguably, neither is KBK. But confidence as a sprinter is vital, and heading into the meaty part of Classics season, Philipsen could not be better placed to repeat the kind of success he has seen in recent seasons.
Consistency is key
If you cast your eye back over the riders who’ve claimed a place in the top ten at both opening Weekend races in the past few years, it reads like a who’s who of the Classics – Wout Van Aert, Christophe Laporte, Matteo Trentin and Jasper Stuyven are all powerhouse riders who’ve been able to lay claim to this achievement. Arnaud de Lie achieved the feat in 2023, despite crashing in Omloop and chasing back on for a large portion of the race. All of these are brilliant Classics riders, with numerous wins to their name and without a doubt, the ability to turn in not one but two strong performances in quick succession is part of their success.
This weekend, while Jasper Philipsen is the most obvious and least unexpected rider to manage not only to finish in the top ten, but on the podium of both races, two more riders achieved the feat. EF Education-EasyPost’s Marijn van den Berg is the first. The 25-year-old has proven himself to be a dangerous prospect in a variety of race situations over the past few years, and he continues to be a threat so far in 2025. Joining him, a less familiar name: Lukáš Kubiš. Also 25 years old, the reigning road and ITT champion of Slovakia was a smart signing for Bas Tietema’s Unibet Tietema Rockets in the off-season, and his distinctive jersey was ever-present at the front of both races over the weekend, with the man himself scoring 6th at Omloop and 9th at KBK and proving himself to be one to watch as the Classics continue to unfold.
On the women’s side, while Omloop het Hageland is a lower level race and the differences between the two pelotons was more marked than it was with the men, Puck Pieterse completed both races in 4th position, picking up where she left off last season. Able to match Demi Vollering with ease on the cobbled climbs, she only narrowly missed out in the final sprint, and she has already proven last year at the Tour de France Femmes that she has the beating of the Dutchwoman in a fast finish; though the presence of actual sprinters in Sunday's Omloop het Hageland put paid to Pieterse's chances of victory, despite a characteristically aggressive performance.
Pieterse as always remains dangerous throughout the classics – capable of surviving the longer climbs of the Ardennes – indeed, her TDFF stage win was won over the hills of Amstel Gold Race and Liège–Bastogne–Liège – but also with the grit and bike handling skills to be able to manage the rigours of the cobbles. She will take on her first Paris-Roubaix this year, and woe betide any team who doesn’t take her seriously.
This could be the most exciting women's season ever... but perhaps not for the reasons we thought
What can I say about Women's Omloop other than... what the heck happened there?? The first opportunity for some of the big names to go head-to-head in the Spring Classics and the peloton spectacularly dropped the ball, allowing a determined and cohesive breakaway up to 14 minutes of a lead at one point, before realising they had left it too late to reel them back in.
Without access to any of the early race footage it's hard to point fingers or assign blame, but at the end of the day, the peloton as a unit is responsible for working together to bring back the day's early break; it's how racing works. Breakaway wins are relatively rare and wonderful things when they do happen, largely because of the infrequent nature of them, as with the collective drive of a much larger group of riders, usually comprising most of a race's headline acts along with the strongest teams.... well, it's just science isn't it.
However. When communication breaks down, or there is disagreement about the division of labour, or simply put, a leader or group of leaders fail to step up and take control of the situation, then incredible scenes can unfold, the likes of which we witnessed on Saturday. While plenty of strong teams were at the race, we were missing the a few obvious contenders, the presence of which may have made the difference. World Champion Lotte Kopecky, winner of the past two editions of the race, backed up by her strong, reliable SD Worx unit, would quite likely have seen to it that such a loss of control never transpired and indeed, under the tutelage of Anna van der Breggen, the team went on to take victory in Sunday's race in an altogether more straightforward fashion.
Yes Demi Vollering was there, and as favourite for pretty much any race she starts, her team are automatically in pole position to control the race but let's not forget, FDJ SUEZ are new to being top dogs in the women's peloton - outside of SD Worx and Lidl-Trek, most teams are. With the powerhouses of the Classics such as Marianne Vos and Elisa Longo Borghini not present, it seems that perhaps the distribution of power was simply too equal for an agreement to be reached. With no obvious hierarchy, the reins of control were released. While Ellen van Dijk worked hard on behalf of her Lidl-Trek teammates, without ELB in the team this year even they might find themselves reluctant to contribute too much to controlling breaks.
It was always clear that this season would be interesting as the powerhouses of the peloton were redistributed between the teams with the most resource, but while this edition of Omloop may be just a blip, an unexpected consequence of the relative 'evening up' of talent, could be more of these seemingly freak outcomes.
The nearly-man once again
Stefan Küng’s status as the bridesmaid is almost unrivalled in cycling (besides perhaps Wout Van Aert), and it belies his great talent, versatility and indeed, palmares. While he had to wait until 2024 to pick up his first Grand Tour victory in his specialist discipline, the ITT, he has podiumed at major championships numerous times and become European champion in the past too. He’s also been a regular fixture at the front end of the Spring Classics for the past few seasons, though he previously lacked some of the tools of the best one-day riders, sometimes struggling on climbs and without the punch at the finish that could see him win from a small group.
On Saturday, not only did Küng show he has improved his climbing in the off-season (he recently mentioned in an interview that he had been specifically working on his punch), he also made the smartest possible decision on the day, striking out with a 8 kilometres remaining to allow himself the time to turn on his time-trialling ability across flat ground, in an attempt to hold the charging peloton at bay. And how different it could have been, if the counter-attacks had continued to roll off the front as they were at the point where he made his decisive move. He might just have made it. In the end, with the bunch coming back together, tactics quickly switched to ‘all in for the bunch sprint’ giving the peloton back the power they needed to catch the Swiss, particularly as he was riding alone into a headwind. Chapeau to Küng for the bravery and the effort – his fans will cheerfully shift focus to hoping that the big win will come on the cobbles now, as well as against the clock, as he’s clearly capable of it.
Underdogs shine as super teams falter
Having discussed the women’s race generally, it’s fair to say that the winner at Omloop is the absolute epitome of an underdog. The first two riders came from outside of the World Tour, with Lotte Claes of Arkéa-B&B Hotels taking her first pro victory, having begun her cycling career relatively late in life aged 27. Second placed Aurela Nerlo of WinSpace Orange Seal, also 27, may be ruing her decision to launch her sprint insanely early and miss out on a potential first win of her career – but it was a strong ride nonetheless and both riders can be proud of their efforts, finishing 3:25 ahead of arguably the greatest female rider on the planet in Demi Vollering, who rounded out the podium graciously and smiling, despite the series of events that had led her to that step. It was a win for the breakaway, and for the underdog, and I am always here for that.
In the men’s edition, while Søren Wærenskjold has more than proven himself as a tough customer and has several wins to his name, this is undoubtedly the biggest – his first at World Tour level – and once again, riding for a team, in Uno-X Mobility, that does not boast World Tour status. It was, all around a weekend for the underdogs – though Sunday’s results reverted to type somewhat – where were the super teams, particularly in the men’s races?
The biggest omission given recent form was Visma-Lease A Bike. Though Olav Kooij came incredibly close at Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, Wout Van Aert continues to look a distance away from his best form – arguably a positive given his main targets, the cobbled Monuments, lie further down the line. With Christophe Laporte absent, suffering from a virus, the Dutch team’s run of winning both opening weekend races for the past two years has been broken, and it's the first year since 2021 that they haven’t claimed at least one of the two victories.
UAE Team Emirates have historically not fared particularly well on Opening Weekend, though they did record second-place finishes last season in both races through Nils Politt and Tim Wellens respectively, and if we’re now including Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe as a super power in the men’s cycling world, they too were conspicuous by their absence, though it must be noted for the record that last year’s winner Jan Tratnik – then riding for Jumbo-Visma – had a mechanical issue on the run-up to the Muur van Geraardsbergen – so we will never know what could have been, there. Having said that, neither team were able to record a top 10 finish on either day.
And what of it? Does it matter much, in the grand scheme of things? Perhaps so-called super teams shouldn’t be worrying themselves too much about Opening Weekend anyway, when the bigger goals are later on in Spring. Equally, the other teams are in a dogfight for points, and a scarp for victories in general, in races that don't feature the likes of Tadej Pogačar and Mathieu van der Poel. But it sets the tone, and leaves us asking questions – perhaps this year’s Classics will be a little more open than we expect. On the other hand, when the super-humans return to the field, there’s not a lot any team can do about it, super or otherwise.
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