The Classics: Domination by Deceuninck-Quick Step

CEBU, Philippines —  As far as I’m concerned, there are only three types of bicycle races. One, the Grand Tours (Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a Espana), two, the once day races, and the others. (Sorry if your favorite race belong to, “others”.)

The first Grand Tour is the Giro d’Italia (means “around Italy), in May, followed but the Tour de France in July and the Vuelta in September. These races are three week marathons and of the riders feel like they don’t want to race, then the marathon is gonna be dull.The one day races are something else, they are a breed of their own.

While  riders can take it easy and pull off their feet from the gas during stage races, a rider can’t do that in one day events. Its either you go out full gas, or you die.

This year, the 2019 season, is different. the one day races, classics, semi-classics and monuments have been dominated by an old team with a new name, Deceuninck- Quick Step, pronounced as, “Dee-kee-nenck”, nee Quick Step. Of the seven, one-day races in the UCI calendar, only one team beat DQS, and it was a small, below the pecking order team that took the race called, Trofeo Laiuguellia while the rest went to the best team in cycling today DQS.

So where is Peter Sagan and Greg van Avermaet, two of the most outstanding cyclists of last year in this time of year? It seems that Sagan has had a stomach problem early this year and for Van Avermet, he just doesn’t have just yet. Sagan looked impressive during last weekends’ Milan-San Remo arriving in 4th place but the bar its set too high for Sagan that getting second place is considered a loss.

It seems that finally, Deceuninck- Quick Step has found a recipe to foil Sagan, by employing multiple exceptional riders instead of depending on one great rider. BORA and CCC, teams of Sagan and Van Avermaet respectively, trying hard to fight back against the guerrilla tactics of Deceuninck- Quick Step, who won the six races with five different riders. Isn’t that sharing the wealth?

BORA and CCC mave have strengthened their teams the past two years but Deceuninck- Quick Step seems to be three steps ahead of the two teams. With the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix penned for the next two Sundays, it would be interesting how BORA and CCC would try to subvert the plans Deceuninck- Quick Step. Stay tuned!

There was a time when I used to sleep late just to watch these races “live” but these days, I’m hitting the sack early and watch the race early in the morning the following via a free, “in demand”, internet channel. The great thing about it is that I can train on my bicycle on the trainer while watching the race on a smart TV It’s as good as “live” since I don’t know about the results yet.  This is the site: http://tiz-cycling.racing.