France's Paul Magnier (Soudal Quick-Step) sped to a hat-trick victory in the Giro d'Italia on Thursday, winning the bunch sprint on damp roads in Pieve di Soligo on stage 18.

The 22-year-old finally cemented the triple after a 15-day wait since his last victory – taken two weeks and a lifetime ago in Sofia, Bulgaria on stage three. It also saw him reclaim the ciclamino jersey from Jhonatan Narvaez (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) with a comfortable 37-point lead.

On a tough finish featuring a cat-four climb with 10km to go, it didn't always look as though the sprinters would have their day. But despite a lot of attacking riding, not least from former maglia rosa Alfonso Eulálio (Bahrain Victorious), the race came back together in the final kilometres.

Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) retained the maglia rosa, 4:03 ahead of Felix Gall (Decathlon CMA CGM).

"I didn't really expect it would happen today, which makes it even more beautiful," an exuberant Magnier said after the stage.

"I can really thank my team for the confidence. I was not confident in myself this morning and I even [got] dropped on the first climb, then I tried to focus again. My teammates were around me and they made it to the sprint - I'm so happy to win here today."

He added: "To be honest I can't even remember the final. I think I'll enjoy the three stage wins, I had the pink jersey already, and the ciclamino jersey for many days. That is something I didn't expect before this Giro and I'm super proud to be there now."

Taking the riders 171km west to east across the far north-east of Italy, today's parcours was hardly pan flat but looked as though it could present an opportunity for the sprinters if the stars aligned. Two classified climbs – a cat-three mid-stage and the cat-four Muro Ca'del Poggio at 10km to go, looked as if they might trip the fast finishers up, which is exactly what nearly happened.

The GC teams initially looked happy to play the game on the Ca'del Poggio, riding at a relaxed pace that suited even the likes of Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) and Magnier. But Eulálio had other ideas despite having crashed earlier in the stage. His hard attack drew the GC hopefuls into a chase that ultimately separated the peloton, and only came back together with 3.5km to go.

On a sinuous finish, Magnier took the initiative after being set up by teammate Jasper Stuyven and got a huge leap ahead through the final bend to take a comfortable win.

Results

Giro d'Italia 2026, Stage 16: Fai della Paganella > Pieve di Soligo, 171km

1. Paul Magnier (Fra) Soudal Quick-Step, 171km in 3:46:50
2. Eduardo Zambanini (Ita) Bahrain Victorious
3. Jonathan Milan (Ita) Lidl-Trek
4. Francesco Busatto (Ita) Alpecin-Deceuninck
5. Corbin Strong (Nzl) NSN Cycling
6. Thomas Silva (Uru) XDS-Astana
7. Madis Mikhels (Est) EF Education-EasyPost
8. Filippo Magli (Ita) Bardiani CSF 7 Saber
9. Sakarias Koller Løland (Nor) Uno-X Mobility
10. Lukáš Kubiš (Slo) Unibet Rose Rockets

General Classification after stage 16

1. Jonas Vingegaard (Den) Visma-Lease a Bike, in 70:44:04
2. Felix Gall (Aut) Decathlon CMA CGM, +4:03
3. Thymen Arensman (Ned) Netcompany-Ineos, +4:27
4. Jai Hindley (Aus) Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe, +5:00
5. Alfonso Eulálio (Por) Bahrain Victorious, +5:40
6. Derek Gee-West (Can) Lidl-Trek, +7:09
7. Michael Storer (Aus) Tudor Pro Cycling, +7:14
8. Davide Piganzoli (Ita) Visma-Lease a Bike, +7:57
9. Damiano Caruso (Ita) Bahrain Victorious, +8:34
10. Ben O'Connor (Aus) Jayco AlUla, +9:20

Paul Magnier stormed to victory on stage one of the Giro d'Italia in Nessebar, Bulgaria, on Friday, winning from a reduced group after a mass crash in the final kilometre. As a result, the Frenchman will take the first pink jersey.

The Soudal Quick-Step rider timed his sprint perfectly to round Tobias Lund Andresen (Decathlon CMA CGM) in the closing metres. Ethan Vernon (NSN Cycling) finished third in a small group of around just 10 riders. It is Magnier's first Grand Tour stage win, and first WorldTour victory of the year. Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek), the sprint favourite, finished fourth.

The run-in was dominated by a serious crash, which took out contenders including Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Premier Tech) and Dylan Groenewegen (Unibet Rose Rockets). However, all riders held up by the incident will finish on the same time, due to it happening in the final kilometres. The crash blocked the road, meaning anyone not in the front dozen riders were unable to compete in the sprint.

"I'm so proud of the team and also my performance," Magnier said post-stage. "I was already happy to be at the start of the Giro with nice shape and a special jersey from Castelli, and now I can change it for the pink jersey. I'm so happy to be honest.

"It was really hectic in the final because it was a pretty easy day so everybody was really fresh. Then I was in a really good position, we knew the narrow road in the final would be tricky, so we tried to get in a good position. Then in the final, Jasper [Stuyven] and Dries [Van Gestel] did an amazing job and I could finish it off, so I'm super proud."

"There are a lot of sprinters here at the start, and it was the first time that I could sprint against these big sprinters, and I'm super happy I can beat them with a team performance," he continued.

"I have some nice memories already with the pink jersey at the Giro Next Gen [the under-23 race] and now I think I will enjoy it too to enjoy it at the Giro d'Italia."

The day to the final kilometres had been relatively quiet, with a two-man breakaway of Diego Pablo Sevilla (Polti VisitMalta) and Manuele Tarozzi (Bardiani CSF 7 Saber), up the road for most of it. They escaped with 137km to go, and were only caught with 23km to the finish. In between, Sevilla won both mountains classification bonus point, on the fourth-category Cape Agalina, while Tarozzi won the intermediate sprint and the Red Bull KM too.

Soudal Quick-Step, Lidl-Trek and NSN Cycling were all very visible inside the final 5km, but the finish was changed by the crash with 600m to go. Lidl-Trek, Soudal Quick-Step and Decathlon CMA CGM were the only teams left with more than one rider in the final group. Despite a late push by Max Walscheid (Lidl-Trek), it came down to Lund Andresen against Magnier, with the latter triumphing.

"Honestly, if it had been anyone other than Paul Magnier in my wheel, I think I would have won," Lund Andresen, who finished second, said. "That’s why I’m both proud and disappointed at the same time. Today was a huge opportunity to make history and wear the pink jersey, so finishing second hurts a little more. There will be other opportunities, we will try everything to go for a win."

Results

Giro d’Italia 2026, stage one: Nessebar > Burgas (147km)

1. Paul Magnier (Fra) Soudal Quick-Step, in 3:21:08
2. Tobias Lund Andresen (Den) Decathlon CMA CGM
3. Ethan Vernon (GBr) NSN Cycling
4. Jonathan Milan (Ita) Lidl-Trek
5. Madis Mikhels (Est) EF Education-EasyPost
6. Giovanni Lonardi (Ita) Polti VisitMalta
7. Pascal Ackermann (Ger) Jayco AlUla
8. Tord Gudmestad (Nor) Decathlon CMA CGM
9. Max Walscheid (Ger) Lidl-Trek
10. Dries Van Gestel (Bel) Soudal Quick-Step, all at same time

General classification after stage one

1. Paul Magnier (Fra) Soudal Quick-Step, in 3:20:58
2. Tobias Lund Andresen (Den) Decathlon CMA CGM, +4s
3. Manuel Tarozzi (Ita) Polti VisitMalta, at same time
4. Ethan Vernon (GBr) NSN Cycling, +6s
5. Diego Pablo Sevilla (Esp) Polti VisitMalta, at same time
6. António Morgado (Por) UAE Team Emirates-XRG, +8s
7. Jonathan Milan (Ita) Lidl-Trek, +10s
8. Madis Mikhels (Est) EF Education-EasyPost
9. Giovanni Lonardi (Ita) Polti VisitMalta
10. Pascal Ackermann (Ger) Jayco AlUla, all at same time

Amid the feverish action that floods this part of the cycling calendar, as the pro peloton pedals through Flanders and contests the spring classics, this snippet of news probably passed you by, but last week, Belgian team Soudal Quick-Step announced a new partnership with… Costa Coffee.

A press release from the team stated: "Costa Coffee will supply pod-based machines that will be installed across the Soudal Quick-Step fleet, ensuring riders and staff always have access to barista-quality coffee from the start of a race day to the finish."

Obviously, what happens on tour stays on tour, and Ethan Hayter, Gianmarco Garofoli, Tim Merlier and co can get their morning marching juice wherever Quick-Step boss Jurgen Foré tells them to, but back in Belgium, a country that takes its coffee almost as seriously as its cycling, the logo of Coca-Cola-owned big-cup caffeine pusher Costa is quite conspicuous by its absence.

In fact, after the British-born coffee chain’s first bricks-and-mortar outlet in Belgium opened in February 2024, in Liège Guillemins rail station, it barely lasted two years before closing due to lack of custom, and the franchise group's grand plan to open many more in the market were quickly and quietly shelved.

Sponsoring a Belgian bike team might be the only way Coca-Cola can get Costa Coffee into the country (meaning Hayter’s nutrition problems might not be quite as far behind him as he’d like and Remco Evenepoel may have bailed just in time to swap corporate-quality coffee for a sugar-loaded energy drink), but what will the more discerning fans of Flanders make of it?

But then again – given the fact that Quick Step’s main and titular sponsor are a Belgian flooring company and the riders' tops bear the logo of Safety Jogger, a footwear brand that makes shoes for pretty much everything – this isn't even the oddest commercial partnership for this one team.

And it's certainly far from the strangest sponsorship deal to be done in a sport where professional bike racing teams are routinely reliant on deals that require them to adopt the names of entities and companies that are completely incongruous with cycling and the culture that surrounds it. Here we take a look at some of the weirder results of this bizarre state of affairs.

From Flanders Fields to farmers' fields

Hands up who remembers Agritubel Pro Cycling Team. Named after a company that makes metal gates for farmers to contain cattle (including cow headlocks, something high on every cycling fan’s wishlist), this French outfit raced as a wildcard entry in four consecutive editions of the Tour de France between 2006 and 2009.

Agritubel rider Juan Miguel Mercado won Stage 9 of the 2006 Tour, and in the same period, the team competed in Paris–Nice, Paris–Roubaix, La Flèche Wallonne, Liège–Bastogne–Liège, and Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré (now the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes). And it wasn’t the only farmer-friendly outfit either: team Jayco AlUla first sprouted as GreenEdge Cycling, sponsored by an Aussie brand of fertiliser.

And who could forget Tonton Tapis-GB? Named for a family run French carpet company, Tonton Tapis, which roughly translates as 'Your Uncle’s Rug', this team enjoyed a short but surprisingly bright existence in 1991, participating in that year's Tour de France and having successes in Paris-Roubaix (where team rider Jean-Claude Colotti was runner-up) and victories at the Setmana Catalana and Critérium International (both won by Irish rider Stephen Roche).

Equally glamorous, Fassa Bortolo, founded in 2000, was sponsored by an Italian firm that made construction products like plaster and paint. They knew how to build a squad, though, and Giancarlo Ferretti led the ‘Silver Team’ to victory in some 200 races, including stages in all three Grand Tours. It was also one of 20 teams that formed the inaugural UCI ProTour system in 2005, before disbanding amid chaos a year later.

Dangerous liaisons

But at least paints, plaster, carpets and livestock pens don’t harm your health, which is more than you can say for some sponsors of cycling teams over the years.

Even back in the heady and hedonistic days of the late 70s and early 80s, when professional snooker and darts players were virtually obliged to booze and smoke their way through televised tournaments, tobacco advertising was banned in sporting events in France.

This could have caused dramas for Boule d'Or, a pro-cycling team sponsored by a brand of cigarettes who were based in Belgium (where it was absolutely fine for athletes to promote smoking). In the end, however, the team, which was active from 1979 to 1983 and raced the Tour de France in 1981 (when team rider Freddy Maertens staged a stunning comeback to bag the green jersey) and 1982, dodged the problem by finding a brand of chocolate with the same name.

Several teams have been bankrolled by booze companies in the past too, perhaps most successfully in the case of Pelforth–Sauvage–Lejeune, a French outfit backed by a Lille-based brewery in the 1960s, with whom Jan Janssen won the 1968 Tour de France. The perfect accompaniment to beer, Smith's Potato Crisps got in on the action too, as named sponsor of a Belgian cycling team in the 1960s that featured Guido Reybrouck and took part in the Tour de France.

In the same era, Carpano – a team sponsored by the Turin-based wine company – had wins in the Dwars door Vlaanderen, Tour of Flanders, Paris–Roubaix and stage victories in Paris–Nice, Giro d'Italia and Tour de France. And Rapha has roots that lead back to a French apéritif, Saint-Raphaël, which sponsored a French professional cycling team of the same name, active from 1954 to 1964.

For well over a decade, however, the UCI rulebook has specified that, "no brand of tobacco, spirits, pornographic products or any other products that might damage the image of the UCI or the sport of cycling in general shall be associated directly or indirectly with a licence-holder, a UCI team or a national or international cycling competition".

But for now it’s still fine for crypto companies and (with some limitations) betting organisations to promote their activities on the backs of riders – we’ll see how that ages.

People and politics

Besides being backed by manufacturers of beer, building products, fags and farming equipment, pro cycling teams have received funding from all sorts of sources, including obscure holiday resorts and HR companies.

RMO was a French team backed by 'a supplier of temporary workers', Relation Main d'Oeuvre, which launched in 1986 and had successes in the mountains classification of the 1990 Tour de France with Thierry Claveyrolat, and the 1991 Paris–Roubaix with Marc Madiot, before collapsing in a heap in 1992.

And Club 88, a beach resort in Montenegro, co-sponsored Italian squad Jolly Componibili in the early 1990s, a team that took a stage wins in the Giro d'Italia thanks to Stefano Giuliani and Dmitry Konyshev.

It's also not unusual to see teams financially tied to nation states – with the Tadej Pogačar-led UAE Team Emirates-XRG and Bahrain Victorious being obvious examples, and the recent fate of Israel-Premier Tech providing a cautionary tale about such associations can become political hot potatoes – but some connections are much more oblique. Launched in 2007, team XDS Astana is named after the capital of Kazakhstan, and it is partly bankrolled by a coalition of state-owned companies from the Central Asian Republic.

Perhaps the most bizarre example of controversial quasi-national/political relationship between a cycling team and its backers is seen in the outfit founded by the Italian Lorenzo Fanini in 1948, which turned pro in 1984, under the name Fanini–Wührer, and claims to be the world's oldest professional cycling team. In 1989, the squad scored an audience at the Vatican with Pope John Paul II, during which Fanini, a devout Catholic, made his riders wear jerseys sporting the slogan 'No to Abortion'.

The team was subsequently rebranded Amore & Vita (Love and Life), a name apparently put forward by the Polish pontiff himself, which led to protests by pro-choice and feminist groups at several events. The team continued racing until 2021, for a period using bikes with a crucifix on the handlebars, and enjoyed some successes at the Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a España. Fanini even offered David Millar a road to redemption with the team after the Scot was sacked by Cofidis for doping in 2004.

So maybe Soudal Quick-Step’s Costa deal is not so weird. After all, Eddy Merckx won his first four grand tours with Faemino–Faema, a cycling team backed by an Italian espresso coffee brand. That said, even The Cannibal might have struggled to perform in saddle after quaffing a pint-sized Chocolate Fudge Brownie Frappe in the team bus.

Soudal Quick-Step rider Gianmarco Garofoli was left "helpless, fragile and completely overwhelmed" after being struck by a hit and run driver while training on the island of Tenerife yesterday, he revealed on social media.

The 23-year-old Italian, fresh from riding the AlUla Tour with the Belgian team, was training in Teide National Park when he was struck by a car from behind at what he described as high speed. He appears to have escaped with only superficial injury but was left traumatised by the incident.

"I was run over by a hit-and-run: he was coming from behind at full speed, over 100km/h, well over the limit," Garofoli wrote on Instagram. "I was perfectly visible: I was wearing a fluorescent yellow vest and had my red rear light flashing."

"Nevertheless, he hasn't slowed down, hasn't moved, hasn't done anything. Snuck up behind my shoulder and hit me with the rear view mirror and the front of the car. At that moment I realized that if he had hit me head-on, I probably wouldn't be here today," he added.

The climber, who was fourth on the Sestriere stage of last year's Giro d'Italia, also posted pictures of the aftermath of the collision. These included the grazes and scuffs he suffered to his body and shoes, as well as one of him holding the door mirror glass that had fallen from the housing of the car that struck him.

As serendipity would have it, upon returning to his hotel "still in shock", Garofoli spotted the offending white Seat car, complete with missing mirror and scuffed bumper. "I immediately called the police, who handled the case and identified the driver," he wrote.

Garofoli went to hospital where he was found to have extensive bruising on his left side, but no broken bones.

"Inside though, something is broken anyway," he wrote. "I share all of this not to create controversy, but to remember how vulnerable we are on the road and all it takes is one second, one wrong choice, to change a life. This is how it goes today. Tomorrow we start again, with a little more fear, but with so much gratitude to still be here."

Ethan Hayter has revealed that problems with on-the-bike nutrition severely hampered his debut season for Soudal Quick-Step last year, claiming that at “quite a few races I wasn’t just a bit off, but a long way off.”

After five years with Ineos Grenadiers, the Londoner made the move to Quick-Step seeking to rediscover the form and consistency he showed in 2021 and 2022 especially, when he was regularly competing with – and occasionally beating – the likes of Wout van Aert and Julian Alaphilippe.

On paper Hayter had a successful first season for Quick-Step, winning five time trials, finishing second on GC at the Tour of Belgium and leading the Tour of Holland with just a day to go before illness forced him to abandon.

But the 27-year-old told both Cycling Weekly and Cyclingnews at his team’s media day in Calpe, Spain that those results only masked his deficiencies in most other areas. “I just wasn’t really performing physically anywhere near where I could be and there were quite a few things going on.

“With the Giro d’Italia I got told a few weeks before [that he was going], and I struggled with changing the nutrition brand. For 90% of the guys it’s fine, but there’s always one or two guys who have a problem with a brand. It’s quite individual.

“With eating so much, I was getting really bloated from certain products in the range, and I just wasn’t digesting it properly. I was doing a lot of races where I’d normally be quite good but I was getting dropped. And it wasn’t a tactical problem but physical.

“Because of that my weight management was a bit off because you’re quite finely tuned with these things, so if you’re then not processing stuff properly and getting bloated and having stomach issues, you try to eat more at other times to compensate, and I had to manage that well.

“There’s a lot more going on in bike races than people realise. We’ve been working over the winter on that and hopefully I’ll be better this year, fingers crossed.”

Despite those problems, Hayter regularly demonstrated his speed and class in efforts against the clock. “I got away with it a bit in time trials last year when it was less than an hour,” he said. “When I was having trouble with nutrition I could do a good effort on the TT bike. I was fortunate to have such good equipment that even if I was physically off the pace I’d be top-10.

“There was a big gap with the road and the TT bike, and there were quite a lot of factors going on. But there were still moments like at the Tour of Belgium where I was pretty good and where I would want to be.

“I don’t think I set the expectations too high but I found it quite frustrating not performing the way I wanted to perform, especially starting in a new team and wanting to start on the right foot.”

Hayter is hoping that those issues are now behind him. He will start his season at the UAE Tour, and also ride Tirreno-Adriatico, Itzulia Basque Country and Tour de Romandie in a spring focused on WorldTour stage races. “I am targeting more one-week races this year as we thought it’d work well with the program,” he said.

“Most of them have a TT and hopefully a few reduced sprints so I can try to be competitive. There’ll be a few weeks between each one so that should let me get to each race in good shape and ready to perform.”

The two-time Olympic medallist on the track is also planning to race in the velodrome towards the end of the year, but expected inclusion for the Vuelta a España means a career-first Tour de France appearance will have to wait until at least 2027 when the race starts in the UK.

“I’ve always been in a funny situation. There are probably more guys who are better at helping than I am, and in general I’m better at going to small races and getting results,” he said. “So the way you structure a season it doesn’t make a load of sense for me to go to the Tour. But one year I obviously really want to do it.”

As we hit January, it is more than the time for pro cycling teams to release their new kits for 2026. For some, this is the best part of the year, before the reality of racing gets involved, when we can just imagine how good the jerseys will look on the road.

Rather than writing up each team individually, we thought it would work better if we collated them together, unless someone does something mad. When all the kits are out, we can do our usual arbitrary evaluation of them too, so do look out for that. In this guide, we will cover all the WorldTour teams, and notable other squads, but not all, otherwise it will get a bit overwhelming, apart from particular exceptions.

If you would rather find out which team riders will be appearing for next year, rather than what they will be wearing, you can find that on our comprehensive transfer guide for 2026 too.

Teams have also changed names – Israel-Premier Tech to NSN Cycling, Alpecin-Deceuninck to Alpecin-Premier Tech, and Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale to Decathlon CMA CGM and more – so that will have an impact on the kits too.

While teams will have tried to keep the fresh designs under wraps, a few have leaked into the public domain. However, this list will only have confirmed designs. So far, those who are fans of garish outfits should be pleased.

So far, we are only certain of a few kits for next season, but more will appear in the coming weeks or days. We'll update this as we go!

Picnic PostNL

If I were to play spot the difference, I would be hard pushed with the 2026 Picnic PostNL kit. It remains navy and orange, with the 'Keep Challenging' stripes, and the name is the same too. There are a couple of new sponsors on there, and this is apparently different, but that's it.

As the press release says: "Clear and vibrant amongst the colourful peloton: fans, commentators and pundits alike won’t have to re-adjust for the 2026 campaign as they can expect to see the two orange stripes from those helicopter shots on even the foggiest of days."

Pinarello-Q36.5

It's a continuation of navy for the renamed Pinarello-Q36.5, but no white sleeves this year. Instead, this smart jersey is fully navy, with fancy gold accents. The bikes don't look bad either...

According to Q36.5's founder, Luigi Bergamo: "The new jersey design evolves the visual language we began developing last season to reflect the Italian values of premium, daring, design that we share with Pinarello.

"The result is a kit that allows our riders to feel, from the very first moment they pull on the kit, that they are part of something special and unique: the only team in the professional peloton founded and powered by Italian technical partners. We can’t wait to see this jersey (and our iconic Dottore bib shorts!) racing sharp at the front of the bunch."

Jayco AlUla and Liv AlUla Jayco

MAAP entered WorldTour cycling with their Jayco AlUla and Liv AlUla Jayco kits, and have stuck to their theme from 2025 with this purple – sorry, "Aurora" – jersey, paired with dark grey shorts.

The new addition is the flame motif, which stretches to the socks, which is a bit of fun.

MAAP's creative director, Misha Glisovic, said: "MAAP has always been driven to push the boundaries. It’s core to who we are and how we see our place in the sport. We want to use design to broaden the appeal of pro cycling, nudging the sport towards something more stylish and aspirational. Ultimately, we want to be true to our values at MAAP, and GreenEDGE shares this vision."

Human Powered Health

Women's WorldTour squad Human Powered Health have partnered with Verge Sport for their new kit. The new design keeps the orange/red/purple that we have become used to for the team, but in a new pattern, which is called 'Tailwind'. It's designed "to embody speed, motion, and momentum".

The press release says the jersey has a "rich, sweeping warm-to-cool colour gradient that represents Human Powered Health’s Pillars of Performance". It'll be paired with black shorts.

Lotto-Intermarché

The newly merged Lotto-Intemarché go with the red of Lotto for 2026. The kit is a dark-ish red, paired with black shorts, and there isn't really too much more to say about it. It's smart!

According to the statement: "In terms of colour, both main sponsors, Intermarché and Lotto, were already allies: their brand colours red and black dominate the design. The meaningful, subtle fingerprint pattern further strengthens the bold look."

Bahrain Victorious

Bahrain Victorious have been red, orange, purple, and white, but never blue. That changes in 2026, when the team, now riding Bianchi bikes, will be in navy blue with teal sleeves.

The press release reveals deeper meanings: "At the heart of the kit sits a deep navy, a colour that has been part of the team’s identity since its foundation. Subtly woven into the design is a faint “X” that crosses the jersey, the Roman numeral representing ten years in the sport.

"On the sleeves of the jersey, Bianchi’s iconic Celeste is distinctly featured, perfectly matching the shallow blue waters and teal tones that represent Bahrain’s two seas."

Visma-Lease a Bike

The men and women of Visma-Lease a Bike will continue in yellow for 2026, wearing a kit made by Nimbl, who are more known for their cycling shoes.

According to Francesco Matrone, graphic designer at Nimbl: "In a WorldTour context, design must be essential, intentional, and instantly recognizable. One of our key goals was to create a visual identity that's identifiable at speed and reflects performance and clarity. It must be unmistakably Visma-Lease a Bike. Every graphic element is functional, integrated, and designed to perform under pressure.”

EF Pro Cycling

EF Education–EasyPost and EF Education–Oatly will remain pink next year, but have switched kit suppliers from Rapha to Assos.

Assos says the 2026 kit reflects a "forward-looking mindset" with a "bold colour palette" that evolves EF Pro Cycling’s unmistakable visual identity while introducing "a new, almost other-worldly energy to the peloton."

The silver bits are fun, and pink is always good to me – I just wonder what's going to happen when the Giro d'Italia comes around.

Alpecin-Premier Tech and Fenix-Premier Tech

It's a brand new name for Alpecin-Premier Tech and Fenix-Premier Tech – no more Deceuninck – but not a completely new kit, with similar vibes for the WorldTour and Women's WorldTour teams. The men's team has a kit made by Kalas, which is the same blue as before, more or less, but with a bit more of a light grading across the chest.

The women's team, meanwhile, wear a kit made by Alé, which is pretty similar to the orange of 2025, and there doesn't seem to be the green and blue options from before.

Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto

Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto are usually found in a bold, colourful kit, and next season is no different. This is Luminous, designed by Mckenzie Sampson and made by Canyon. It takes a dark purple base and merges it with turquoise, pink, coral and red.

Sampson said: "I’ve always found Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto to be an aspiring light within the peloton. They’re a team that gives a unique platform to a diverse set of riders across the globe to get their big break in cycling. To visually illustrate that sense of light and hope, we wanted the kit design to be bold yet convey the right balance of contrasting light, unique patterns, and rich saturated moments of colour."

AG Insurance-Soudal

AG Insurance-Soudal have mostly the same kit as their brother team Soudal Quick-Step, just with different sponsors. There is a new logo, too: Datashift, a Belgian leader in data solutions and strategy.

It's a blue base, with green accents across, with a white band across the chest for AG Insurance.

Ineos Grenadiers

There was rumour and speculation that it might happen, but now it is official... Ineos Grenadiers will be wearing WHITE yes WHITE shorts next season. Well, it's technically 'light grey', but come on.

Orange is the main colour on the jersey for the first time, after various blues and reds, but it is the white that stands out. It's as striking, if not more so, as AG2R's famous brown shorts, and we wonder how the riders are feeling about it...

The press release says: "The design was created with a clear purpose: immediate recognition. The exclusive use of this orange ensures a striking presence in the peloton, while the white panels on the lower sections add balance and clarity, allowing the leading colour to shine with harmonious strength. The result is a sophisticated, functional and memorable kit."

Apparently: "Orange is the new uniqueness. Orange is the new icon." Read our opinion on it here.

Soudal Quick-Step

It's evolution not revolution for Soudal Quick-Step in 2026, who have a similar kit to this season, but green rather than white as the accent colour, along with the classic blue.

According to the team: "The new design incorporates a vivid electric-lime element, a deliberate move inspired by the Shine for Safety visibility campaign launched during this year’s Ardennes Classics."

There is a lot more green on the back, which will help them stand out, apparently. It's a nice wavy pattern. The kit is designed and made by Castelli.

FDJ United-SUEZ

If you're thinking "I've seen this kit before", you would be right. FDJ United-SUEZ will be wearing their 2025 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift kit full-time next year. It's largely black, with an explosion of red and blue on the chest.

The press release says about the Gobik kit: "The jersey reflects the unseen hours of the sport: training sessions before dawn, rides in the rain, the fear and doubts of a jour sans. In contrast, a vivid halo of light rises on the chest, symbolising the inner spark that transforms sacrifice into brilliance at the moment of victory.

Demi Vollering won't be in this kit, given the Dutchwoman is European champion.

UAE Team Emirates-XRG

UAE Team Emirates-XRG rarely mix the colour palette up too much, and 2026 will be no different – it's largely white, with black and red trim, but it definitely has changed since last season.

The Pissei kit, handcrafted at the brand's Italian Custom Lab, has some fun geometric patterns on the stormach of the jersey, with black on the arms too. Don't expect to see Tadej Pogačar in this one, however, considering he is world champion.

Movistar

It's a second year in a row in white for Movistar, who have ditched the navy box across the chest for this cleaner offering. There is the classic M on the front, and some accents across the rest of the front.

Apparently: "Gobik sought a futuristic aesthetic, an evolution that projects innovation and performance on a white base. Technological textures, iridescent graphics and subtle transparencies were combined to create a striking design that reflects the identity and avant-garde spirit of the team." Avant-garde. Right.

Lidl-Trek

Lidl-Trek's kit is different. Definitely. There's less red on the front, more blue, and there's a new sponsor on the front, but it is, essentially, the same as last year. There's nothing wrong with that! It's a good kit! "Our favourite colours" is what the team said. Keep it simple. The men and women use the same kit, which is good.

The team say: "With a fresh twist on a fan-favorite design, Santini have delivered again with the 2026 Lidl-Trek kit. Pairing the ultimate fabrics with playful colours, the latest design delivers looks as well as performance."

Decathlon CMA CGM

Sadly, there's no exciting bumf to go with the new Decathlon CMA CGM kit, but with a new name comes a new colour - red. The brown shorts are sadly still in the dustbin of history, with new sponsors CMA CGM bringing the new colour. One sleeve is still teal (?) while the other is a lot darker, rather than the dark blue it was before.

Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe

Now, Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe's kit is yet to be officially announced, but seeing as all the riders in the plane stunt were wearing a new kit, let's assume this is the new one for 2026. It's a lot whiter than before, with royal blue sleeves, and less navy. It is similar to the special kit they used at the Tour de France this season.

SD Worx-Protime

SD Worx-Protime have veered away from the purple and pinks of recent years, and instead will race in this primary colour-heavy jersey which is called "New Dawn"

It's designed by Specialized, and is paired with black shorts. Notably, Lotte Kopecky will be racing in it, no longer being world, European, or Belgian champion, for once.

According to the press release: "The new jersey reflects the team’s and sponsors’ ongoing drive for innovation. Standing still is not an option – continuously reinventing ourselves in every aspect is a core value at SD Worx-Protime. The new design symbolises our rich history through the spark, now multiplied and displayed in various shades. This emphasises the team’s slogan: we spark success."

NSN Cycling

The team formerly known as Israel-Premier Tech have become NSN Cycling, and will be wearing a busy kit next season, with a base of sky blue and orange. The jury is out over whether this will be easy to notice or to lose in the peloton. They're also riding Scott bikes now.

If you want to know why it looks like this, the press release says: "It's designed by Stijn Dossche of stycle.design, is inspired by the Mediterranean city from which the team’s new identity has been forged.

"Its design blends geometry, colour blocks, and patterns reminiscent of contemporary Barcelona - a city that never stands still, where tradition meets modernity, where Mediterranean light becomes art, and movement becomes identity."

Just in time for the Tour de France Grand Départ in July, then – that's in Barça.

Groupama-FDJ United

Another new name, though less dramatic, is Groupama-FDJ United. The French stalwarts are slow to change their kits, normally, and the same is true next year. It's the fetching number they wore at this year's Tour, although it's now made by Bioracer rather than Alé. Essentially, it's royal blue with a red accent sleeve.

Cofidis

Cofidis are another French team barely changing their kit for 2026. The men's and women's teams, now both ProTeams, will use the same red and yellow jersey as this season, although the shades might have been slightly altered, and the sponsors have moved around a bit.

Seven seasons and out. Remco Evenepoel has spent his entire senior career at the Soudal Quick-Step set-up, but for the venerable Belgian team, Evenepoel's tenure is but one in a series of chapters, team CEO Jurgen Foré said.

He was speaking following the confirmation that Evenepoel would be leaving his Soudal Quick-Step contract early to move to Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe.

Speaking to Belgian outlet Sporza, Foré also pointed to the fact that Tim Merlier had recorded half of Soudal Quick-Step's victories in 2025 – the 32-year-old sprinter has won 12 times for the team – and added:

"I think we need to race broadly and with the team as a whole again.

"We've done everything we can to make Remco happy. I want to turn the page now and have confidence in the team. We've been around for 23 years and have written many chapters. This is just one of them."

Soudal Quick-Step had been paid a "fair amount" of money to let Evenepoel go , Foré said, adding: "Although sponsors like Soudal prefer to see a contract honored. But we decided we didn't want to go to court."

"I think we're parting ways on good terms," said Foré, following yesterday's news of Evenepoel's departure. "The intention was to start discussions about the future after the Tour—a big goal for both of us. In June, it became clear that there wasn't much room for an extended stay. Also, because of what had happened before, we felt we didn't need to push. So we didn't."

Evenepoel and Soudal Quick-Step have had a huge amount of success together, with the 25-year-old winning Olympic and World titles as well as becoming Belgium's first Grand Tour winner in 44 years when he won the 2022 Vuelta a España.

He had a top 2024 season in which he was third on GC at the Tour de France and then won the Olympic Games road race and time trial followed by the World Championships TT crown (all this despite a heavy early-season crash). However, he struck bad luck in December when he was 'car-doored' by a Belgian postal service vehicle, setting him back hugely.

So far this year he appears to have struggled to regain the form – and even the drive – of last season, perhaps amplified by the longstanding rumours that Evenepoel wanted to leave Soudal Quick-Step, feeling he could go no further.

Remco Evenepoel is to leave Soudal Quick-Step after mutual agreement, breaking his contract early, and will join Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe for 2026.

The move, announced by Soudal Quick-Step on Tuesday afternoon, comes after weeks of speculation regarding the 25-year-old's future, which dogged him throughout the recent Tour de France.

A short press release from Quick-Step confirmed that Evenepoel's contract will be terminated, bringing an end to their relationship of more than six years. Evenepoel turned professional with the team, formerly managed by Patrick Lefevere, in 2019.

Minutes later, a press release from Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe confirmed the arrival of the double Olympic champion.

“Representatives of Remco informed the team’s management that he did not wish to discuss an extension of his current agreement, which expires at the end of 2026," the statement from Quick-Step read.

"After taking some time to consult with our sponsors and partners, the team’s ownership and management have decided that it is in best interest of everyone to agree that Remco can move at the end of the current 2025 season," it continued.

"Since its inception in 2003, our team has seen many iterations and changes, while continuing to develop into one of the most successful teams in the history of professional cycling and recently became the first professional cycling team to reach 1000 UCI wins.

"While we regret Remco’s decision to leave, we will foster the memories that we have made and will continue to strive together to achieve some significant results for the rest of the season.”

“Remco stands for ambition. He doesn’t just want to ride – he wants to shape cycling,” Ralph Denk, Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe CEO said. “He brings not only exceptional athletic talent, but also a remarkable mindset. His determination, professionalism, and relentless drive to succeed are truly inspiring.”

The Red Bull statement says: "Remco Evenepoel’s arrival marks more than just a milestone for Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe – it is a clear signal. With renewed confidence and bold ambition, the team is setting its course to become one of the most attractive forces on the international cycling stage in the years to come.

As well as winning the Vuelta a España while riding for Quick-Step, Evenepoel won several other major races in the blue and white of the Belgian team; including two editions of Liège–Bastogne–Liège.

At the Tour de France, Soudal Quick-Step’s CEO Jurgen Foré said that he would discuss Evenepoel's future once the race was over, while Evenepoel played down reports of a move imminently happening.

In the build up to his exit, Evenepoel endured a difficult ending to his final race with Quick-Step, abandoning the Tour midway through stage 14 in the Pyrenees on the road to Superbagnères. Tom Steels, the team's lead sports director at the race, said at the time that the 25-year-old had withdrawn in order to protect his goals later in the season.

Evenepoel won the stage 5 time trial around Caen, but appeared out of sorts when the race hit the high mountains.

After abandoning the race, he revealed in a social media post that he had rushed to be fit in time for the Tour, and that he had raced with a broken rib.

A move to Red Bull looked likely to be confirmed soon when the German team, announced last week that their head sports director, Rolf Aldag, had departed the project. The former Belgian national team coach, Sven Vanthourenhout, then told Sporza that he would be joining Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe.

Sources have told Cycling Weekly that Quick-Step DS Klaas Lodewyck will also make the move with Evenepoel and suggested that Aldag was asked to leave to make way for Evenepoel's entourage.

Any transfer would need to have been ratified by Soudal Quick-Step, Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe, and Evenepoel himself, with approval from the UCI also requested as part of the process. Due to the contract being broken early early, reports have also suggested that the Belgian will need to pay his former team €5 million in compensation, with Red Bull adding €2 million.

Little is known about Evenepoel's racing schedule towards the end of the season, although he is expected to return to competition and lead Belgium at the road World Championships in Rwanda in September.

Remco Evenepoel says he genuinely contemplated early retirement during his recovery from an array of extensive injuries after being doored by the driver of a Belgian postal vehicle last December.

Evenepoel was just beginning his winter training ahead of the 2025 season when the incident occurred. He was left with multiple fractures, including a broken shoulder, hand and ribs, and suffered a serious nerve injury in his shoulder.

In an emotional and revealing Instagram post on Monday, Evenepoel shone a light on what he described as a "dark period" during the recovery process and confirmed that he would return to racing at Brabantse Pijl in Belgium on Friday. He thanked his wife, Oumi, for being by his side throughout the last few months and hinted that he had contemplated stopping his career.

Speaking in a press conference ahead of his season debut, Evenepoel was asked whether the suggestion that he could have retired was genuine.

"Of course," he said. "The injuries were quite severe with my shoulder where all the muscles and all the ligaments were destroyed. The surgery was a heavy one as well, and then you had the extra nerve problem, which completely stopped my shoulder from functioning, that was pretty hard to accept. It was just a difficult period. It's the second time with the shoulder in six months. So at a certain point you start to doubt if the shoulder will be functional again.

"The things I've written were not light in the post. I actually think it's one of the first posts that I wrote myself in the last few years, that's how personal it was. I think it's not bad to sometimes share how difficult a period really has been for you, and not always to put a mask on, but just show it to people how difficult it has been."

"But it doesn't mean that I'm not happy now," he added. "I'm really happy to race again, to train. I think my whole family, my wife, my friends, have seen me changing over the weeks since the crash. First it was going downwards, and then since I could train again, it was going upwards. So now it's hopefully only up and positive feelings."

It was the second severe right shoulder injury that he’d sustained in a year after fracturing his collarbone on the same side at Itzulia Basque Country.

"After a few weeks with the injury, we discovered a nerve injury," Evenepoel explained. "This one has not healed yet. There's a part of the shoulder muscle that is not working at all for the moment. But luckily, that muscle is not the most important one for cycling. If I were a tennis player, or a volleyball player, then my career would have been over. So luckily, I'm a cyclist.

"My hand is 100% again, the ribs, the scapula, the lungs as well. The ligaments and the muscle are still a bit sensitive, let's say, and we need to use a lot of tape tomorrow in the race to stabilise the shoulder, especially with the cobbled sections that we are having. It's not optimal, but of course, my legs are turning, that's the most important thing."

While on the sidelines and training in recent weeks, Evenepoel said he watched most of the major Spring Classics and explained that the performances of Tadej Pogačar and Mathieu van der Poel in Milan-Sanremo, the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix gave him extra motivation to get back to his best.

Before facing Pogačar at the Amstel Gold on Sunday, Evenepoel has the small matter of coming up against an in-form Tom Pidcock at Brabantse Pijl, a race the Brit has won before. The Belgian said that while his own form is obviously unknown, he felt ready to make a return to the top level.

"Now, I think I'm ready to race. I've tried to train long, lots of long endurance rides, and then the last few weeks some intensity training. For sure, I'm behind my top shape, but I'm still in a good shape, like I always try to start in. But will it be enough to be guys like Pidcock and Pogačar, who are in the shape of their lives, this I don't know. We will see after Sunday."

Remco Evenepoel is set to return to racing on Friday at Brabantse Pijl in Belgium after coming through what he described as a "dark period" sidelined with injury.

The double Olympic champion was left with multiple fractures after being doored by the driver of a Belgian postal vehicle while training last winter. As well as breaking his shoulder blade, hand and ribs, the 25-year-old dislocated his collarbone and sustained nerve damage as a result.

The Belgian has not yet raced this year, last competing at Il Lombardia in October.

Ahead of his return to competition on Friday, Evenepoel shared an emotional post on Instagram, saying his comeback has been "the hardest battle of my life so far".

"After days, weeks, months of waiting and waiting, I can finally look towards my first races. The way to where I am now has been very hard and challenging," he wrote.

"Mentally and physically, I can honestly say that I have been under the ground and really doubted a lot of my future."

In his post, the Belgian underlined his gratitude for his wife, Oumi, who supported him through his rehabilitation.

"I want to show you all who really has been there for me," he said. "In first place (of course), my lovely wife Oumi! Passing this whole dark period with me has not been easy. The way you worked hard to pass all your exams was unseen! That combined with me being injured and mentally down, I can only say: thank you so much for everything habiba.

"Every day, you came up with a lesson. You have been teaching me so much stuff, on all aspects in life! How to get through hard periods, how to stay focused, how to be happy while it is difficult. We had and will still have loads of prayers together, which is such an incredible thing you taught me. And which is such an incredible feeling to share with you!"

As well as thanking his wife, Evenepoel also thanked his parents and the medical team at Soudal Quick-Step, who were also helped his comeback when he crashed into a ravine at Il Lombardia in 2020.

"I definitely have to thank my parents as well for always being there for me. And helping me with whatever it can be! Since I was a very young kid, you guys have been doing everything for me, and I will for sure never forget that!" he said.

"All the medical staff who worked (and are still working) with me during my rehab: THANK YOU. We came from far back, but we made it.. again."

After racing Brabantse Pijl, Evenepoel is expected to compete in the three major Ardennes Classics – Amstel Gold, La Flèche Wallonne, and Liège–Bastogne–Liège, a race he has previously won on two occasions.

His current race programme then includes the Tour de Romandie and Critérium du Dauphiné ahead of a return to the Tour de France this summer. Evenepoel finished third on his debut at the Grand Tour last year and will face Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar once again in July.

Former Soudal Quick-Step boss Patrick Lefevere was taken to hospital on Wednesday evening after falling unwell.

According to a report in La Derniere Heure, the 70-year-old spent the night in the intensive care unit at the University Hospital of Ghent but remained conscious throughout, after he fell unwell at a Belgian restaurant. Het Nieuwsblad reported that Lefevere returned home on Thursday after possibly suffering from a drop in his blood pressure. The first report stated that he will undergo further tests to understand the exact nature of the health problem.

An update on Lefevere’s condition was shared by Soudal Quick-Step on social media on Thursday morning.

"After feeling unwell yesterday evening, Patrick Lefevere was taken to hospital in Gent, where he spent the night under medical examination,” the team said. "This morning, Patrick is feeling well and the team wishes him a speedy recovery and hopes to welcome him soon at one of the races. We kindly ask that you respect Patrick’s privacy at this time."

Lefevere founded the Quick-Step team in 2003, but the Belgian former professional cyclist stepped down from his role as CEO at the end of last year. He was replaced by Jurgen Foré, who joined Quick-Step initially as COO in early 2024. Lefevere recently attended Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and the races over Opening Weekend in Belgium.

During Lefevere’s time in charge, Quick-Step won 22 Monuments, including eights editions of the Tour of Flanders. He also led the squad’s transition into a GC team, headed up by Remco Evenepoel, which resulted in Evenepoel’s 2022 Vuelta a España victory.

"It is a life changing moment to leave a role that I have committed so much of my life to," Lefevere previously said. "Cycling is a sport that I am still deeply passionate about, and it has been a great honour to head up this beautiful team and make so many special memories."

"There are countless people that I need to thank, far too many to mention individually, but there are of course my family, the team’s talented riders, our dedicated staff, our loyal sponsors, all of which is backed by the generosity and support of our team owner Zdenek Bakala."

Remco Evenepoel is making progress in his return to fitness after injury and says he will be getting back to indoor cycling at the weekend on his rollers.

The multiple Olympic champion suffered a range of injuries after being doored by a Belgian post vehicle during a training ride in December. Evenepoel required surgery after breaking a rib, his hand and shoulder blade. He also suffered contusions on his lungs and a luxation of his clavicle. The Belgian’s gold S-Works bike was also snapped clean in two by the heavy impact during the incident.

In a media release from his team Soudal Quick-Step, Evenepoel discussed his progress as he continues his return from injury and outlined his goals for the season. The 24-year-old said he is targeting "a good result" at the Tour de France.

"The first couple of weeks after my injury were difficult, because this happened just as I was preparing to start training again, but I tried to take my mind off this during the holidays and things are better now," Evenepoel said. "It’s been almost five weeks now that I didn’t do any proper sports, which means that I have been off the bike for 10 weeks now.

"That’s why the most important thing for me is to start my rehab and jump on the rollers, hopefully on Saturday. I will combine riding with physio sessions. I am ready mentally to be back on the bike, but I won’t push myself to go all in from the beginning, because I want to make a full recovery of my shoulder."

"The reason I’m not going outside yet is that the shoulder isn’t ready to absorb the shocks of the road," he added. "I hope to restart training outside at the beginning of February, that would be the best scenario at this point.

"As I said, it wasn’t easy when this happened, especially as it was my second injury on that side in the same year and I was coming after an excellent summer – which was one of the best moments of my career – but I got a lot of support from my family and my team and eventually stopped thinking about this and focused instead only on my recovery."

Evenepoel explained that he is aiming to make his comeback at Brabantse Pijl in the Classics. He said that if everything goes according to plan on his home roads in Belgium then it’s possible that he could start the Tour de Romandie before competing in the Critérium du Dauphiné and the Belgian National Championships.

"I think it’s easier to return to competition in one-day races instead of stage races," he said. "And I love the Ardennes Classics, so hopefully I will be in good shape by then, in three months' time."

From there Evenepoel will head to altitude for a final tune up before heading to Lille for the start of the Tour.

He concluded: "I want to be at 200% for the Tour de France, and if things go as planned and I continue to improve, I am confident I can start there in a strong form and fight for a good result."

Remco Evenepoel has shared an update on his condition after undergoing surgery in Belgium, to repair injuries sustained in a "scary" training ride collision with a postal vehicle on Tuesday.

The 24-year-old Belgian was struck by the door of a Bpost van early on Tuesday morning, which resulted in an extensive list of injuries. Evenepoel suffered fractures to his rib, right shoulder blade and right hand.

A media update released by his Soudal Quick-Step team also said that he sustained contusions on both lungs and a luxation of the clavicle which meant he needed surgery.

The double Olympic champion shared a photo of himself with his arm in a sling in an update to fans on Instagram on Wednesday.

"The comeback starts now," Evenepoel wrote, posting from his hospital bed. "After a scary accident on training yesterday, I underwent surgery last night and everything went well.

"With a fracture to my rib, shoulder blade, hand, contusions to my lungs and a dislocation of my right clavicle which has caused all surrounding ligaments to be torn, it’s going to be a long journey but I’m fully focused on my recovery and I’m determined to come back stronger, step by step."

He continued: "I'm very grateful for all the help and support I received the last 24 hours. From the emergency services, the neighbours that helped me in the first moment, the medical teams in Anderlecht and Herentals and our team doctor Phil.

"Also a special mention for my wife, my family for standing by me in these difficult moments and to everyone for their supportive messages."

A spokesperson for the Belgian postal service said that the driver of the vehicle that Evenepoel collided with was "extremely affected by the incident".

Evenepoel publicly expressed his support for the postal worker in his update.

"I also want to express my support to the woman who was involved in the accident," he said.

Soudal Quick-Step made clear on Tuesday evening that the team’s star rider will now require a "two-week period of immobilisation" after surgery before any further plans for his recovery can be made.

Evenepoel was already deep into his winter training and it is not yet known if he is likely to be fit enough to travel to a team training camp in Spain later this month.

Remco Evenepoel suffered fractures to his rib, right shoulder blade and right hand in a training ride collision with a Belgian post van on Tuesday morning.

The double Olympic champion was rushed to hospital in Anderlecht after being doored by the vehicle during a ride near Oetingen, near to Brussels and Antwerp, before being transferred to a hospital in Herentals. As well as his physical injuries, his special edition gold S-Works Tarmac bike was snapped clean in two by the impact.

Evenepoel’s Soudal Quick-Step team issued a statement on Tuesday afternoon clarifying the 24-year-old’s list of injuries after previous reporting in the Belgian press had suggested he had sustained a fractured collarbone in the fall.

"Following an incident while training today, Remco Evenepoel was taken to hospital where it was revealed that he has sustained fractures to his rib, right shoulder blade and his right hand," the statement read.

It continued: "Remco was taken to the Erasmus Hospital in Anderlecht shortly after the incident, where he was initially assessed.

"He will now travel to the hospital in Herentals, where alongside the Soudal Quick-Step medical staff, his injuries will be further assessed and the pathway for his recovery decided. We wish him a speedy recovery!"

Evenepoel was reported to have been fully conscious after the collision and able to sit upright despite his injuries.

Another update from Quick-Step explained that further examinations had revealed the injuries were even worse and meant Evenepoel was forced to undergo surgery on Tuesday evening in Herentals.

"Examinations have also revealed contusions on both lungs and a luxation of the clavicle," the team said late on Tuesday. "The clavicle will be operated on this evening, which if successful, should allow Remco to leave hospital tomorrow.

"There will then be a two-week period of immobilisation required following this, after which a plan for his return to training can be made.

"Soudal Quick-Step would like to thank the staff at the Herentals hospital for their help!"

"I only know that someone opened his door and Remco crashed into it," Evenepoel’s team boss Patrick Lefevere told Sporza shortly after the incident involving his star man and before the extent of his injuries was known.

"Such accidents unfortunately happen five times a day, people who don't pay attention and open their door. Remco has pain in his shoulder and his hand. Our doctor is working on it. His bike broke in two in that incident. But it is better to have his bike in two than his arm."

It is the second time this year that Evenepoel has been hospitalised with severe injuries after crashing. The Belgian broke his right collarbone and scapula after being caught up in the horror crash at Itzulia Basque Country in the spring.

Evenepoel recovered from his injuries before going on to finish third at the Tour de France this summer. He then won both the men’s road race and time trial at the Paris Olympics before successfully defending his time trial world title at the World Championships in Switzerland.

Remco Evenepoel has reportedly been hospitalised following a training ride crash in which he collided with a post van in Belgium.

Full details of exactly what happened remain unknown, but Soudal Quick-Step boss Patrick Lefevere confirmed to Belgian media that Evenepoel has "pain in his shoulder and hand" following on from the incident.

The frame of the double Olympic champion’s gold S-Works Tarmac bike was also snapped completely in two by the force of the crash.

The 24-year-old is currently in hospital in Anderlecht with his family, and was said to have been conscious and able to sit upright after the collision.

According to a report in Sporza, Evenepoel was unable to avoid the door of a local post van when it opened in front of him.

"I only know that someone opened his door and Remco crashed into it," Patrick Lefevere told Sporza. "Such accidents unfortunately happen five times a day, people who don't pay attention and open their door."

"Remco has pain in his shoulder and his hand. Our doctor is working on it. His bike broke in two in that incident. But it is better to have his bike in two than his arm," he added.

Evenepoel’s father, Patrick Evenepoel, told Het Nieuwsblad that he had already heard from his son but a full picture of what happened was still not clear.

"We don't know much more ourselves," he said. "He was taken to the Erasmus Hospital in Anderlecht. He has already sent us a message, so we hope everything is okay. From what I hear, he fell after colliding with the swinging door of a Bpost truck."

A statement from a Bpost spokesperson confirmed that it was one of their drivers involved.

"We confirm that an incident occurred this morning involving a Bpost car and cyclist Remco Evenepoel," the spokesperson said.

"Unfortunately, we cannot go into the details of the accident, but it goes without saying that the postman and Bpost are fully cooperating with the investigation. The police have arrived on site to make the necessary observations.

"The postman also stayed at the scene until Remco could be taken to the hospital. They are extremely affected by the incident. We wish Remco a speedy recovery and we hope that the consequences for him will be kept to a minimum."

Cycling Weekly contacted Soudal Quick-Step to ask about Evenepoel’s condition. This article will be updated when more information becomes available.

Remco Evenepoel has put an end to the endless transfer speculation linking him with a move away from Soudal Quick-Step at the end of the 2024 season. 

Evenepoel has been regularly connected to a possible switch to the German team Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, which is also sponsored by Specialized, Evenepoel's bike sponsors. However, Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport reported late on Thursday that any possible move was dead in the water. 

Speaking ahead of the elite men’s road race at the UCI Road World Championships in Zurich, Evenepoel confirmed himself that he will stay with Quick-Step next year and brushed away suggestions that a switch was genuinely on the cards. 

"I'll stay where I am, that's pretty clear," he said. "No transfers."

Evenepoel is tied to Patrick Lefevere’s team until 2026, although his constant stream of high-profile results has meant that he has constantly been linked with moves elsewhere. 

Ineos Grenadiers attempted to sign Evenepoel as a junior and were said to be exploring ways to acquire the Belgian’s services in the autumn of 2022. Formal meetings to explore a possible transfer were reported to have taken place between Evenepoel, his father who acts as his agent, and team representatives. But Ineos failed in their attempts to entice the now double Olympic champion away from his current team. 

The Ineos links continued in 2023 with Evenepoel being forced to brush away questions regarding his future at the Glasgow worlds last August. Red Bull coming on board at Bora-Hansgrohe earlier this year meant that the German WorldTour giants were the next team to be heavily linked with Evenepoel moving into 2025. 

According to a report from Cyclingnews, Evenepoel dismissed the links on Friday and re emphasised his commitment to Soudal Quick-Step.  

"I think some information was more than I knew myself, which was pretty funny to hear, but nothing changes," Evenepoel said.

"I'll stay with my [Soudal Quick-Step] teammates. We'll work and fight for the biggest goal, that is to one day win the Tour de France."

Evenepoel made his debut at the Tour de France this summer, securing third overall, a stage win and the best young rider’s classification. 

Much of the discourse prior to Sunday’s worlds road race has centred on Tadej Pogačar’s attempt to become only the third man to claim cycling’s triple-crown - the Giro d’Italia, Tour de France and road world title in the same season. Only Eddy Merckx and Stephen Roche have claimed the hallowed prize before him. 

The Slovenian dominated the recent Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal, his final race before heading to Zurich, and is the outright favourite to claim the rainbow jersey, but Evenepoel is not too far behind.

Pogačar now stands on the cusp of history, although Evenepoel has his own monumental achievement within reach. He won the road world title in 2022 in Australia, but if he reclaims the rainbow jersey on Sunday he could become the first man to complete a historic Olympic and World Championships quadruple in the same season. 

He has already successfully defended the time trial world title that he won in Scotland and has two Olympic medals in his collection. Another gold medal on Sunday would complete a hugely successful and historic year for the 24-year-old Belgian. 

British under-23 rider Cormac Nisbet has said quitting cycling has brought "a bit of freedom and happiness" back into his life. 

The 19-year-old, who spent this year on Soudal Quick-Step's development squad, announced his decision to step away from the sport on Sunday evening, writing in an Instagram post that the lifestyle "didn't bring me happiness".

Speaking to Cycling Weekly, Nisbet said the response to his post has been "pretty overwhelming", but he has "no regrets" about making the decision.

"It's a big one," he said. "Once you make it, there's no going back. You can't undo it. I wanted to be certain of it.

"When I look back at it, I realise that I don't think that professional lifestyle suits me that much, and it's such a dangerous sport. Nowadays, if you're not 100% committed, there's no real point in risking your life at the Conti level to pursue it."

At the start of this season, Nisbet said he was involved in a lot of crashes that left him at a low point. He was due to stay with Soudal Quick-Step's development arm for another year, with a view to then turning professional, but has now ended his contract. 

"It's obviously a massive decision to make, but ultimately, there's a lot more to life than bike racing. If it doesn’t make you happy, and you’re not enjoying it anymore, then you’re not going to be a great bike rider," he said.  

Part of his reason for quitting, he explained, came from a lack of "mental stimulation".

"It's really hard to stay stimulated because everything's done for you," Nisbet said. "You have your own sponsors through the team, your coaching is done, you have no control over the people around you in that sense of things. I think some people really enjoy that, the fact that everything's done for them and all they have to do is worry about riding their bike. But I felt I needed something more mentally stimulating, and I wasn't getting that through cycling."

Another thing that played on his mind was the "danger side" of the sport. 

"Just being in the peloton, I've always had a bit of fear," he said. "We've had multiple tragic deaths over the last couple of years, across all levels of cycling, and very little seems to be done about it. There's a lot of things that I feel could be implemented by governing bodies, or those in power, that would probably make the sport a lot safer.

"There's no perfect answer to it. I kind of fear that the sport could go into a phase like Formula 1 went into in the 80s and 90s, where serious injury and death start becoming common."

Last June, Bahrain Victorious rider Gino Mäder died after he crashed on a descent at the Tour de Suisse. The sport witnessed another tragedy this July, when Norwegian André Drege died after a crash at the Tour of Austria.

"Inherently, cycling is going to be a dangerous sport," Nisbet said. "I guess you can take that risk-reward balance if you're in the top 10, 15, 20 riders in the world, earning multi-million [pound] salaries and having really good treatment, but the reality is I didn't believe I could reach that level in particular."

After finishing the Tour Alsace last month, the teenager spent a few weeks at home in Buckinghamshire contemplating the future of his career. "It had been brewing for a while," he said. "I wasn't getting happiness from my racing for a while."

Since stepping away, he says, "I feel as though I’ve got a bit of freedom and happiness back into my life. I always wanted to stop at a point where, once I'd made that decision, I would still go and ride my bike for fun the next day.

"I did that Instagram post that evening, and the next morning, I went out for a two-hour spin with a mate and just enjoyed cycling. I didn't want to lose that love for the sport.”

Nisbet explained he is now "casting a lot of fishing lines out" to see what career he might pursue next. Alongside his training and racing, he has run his own YouTube channel documenting his life in cycling, and has collected almost 90,000 views across his videos. He also has his own video-editing business, and is considering going to university to study economics.

"I still love watching cycling, I still love riding my bike, and I didn't want that to be lost if I persevered and really fell out of love with cycling," he said. "I've run out of desire to make it to the WorldTour ranks and to the professional ranks, but I still love riding and racing my bike. It's just looking at it from a different perspective."

Double Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel and Julian Alaphilippe will both ride the upcoming Lloyds Bank Tour of Britain Men for Soudal Quick-Step, British Cycling Events revealed on Friday. 

After recently winning two gold medals at the Paris Olympics, Evenepoel will make his Tour of Britain debut as he builds for the upcoming road World Championships in Zurich, Switzerland at the end of September. 

Evenepoel will be joined on the start line, on 3 September in Kelso in the Scottish borders, by Alaphilippe in what is likely to be one of the final appearances the former two-time road world champion makes in the colours of Soudal Quick-Step. It was recently confirmed by Quick-Step boss Patrick Lefevere that after 11 years, Alaphilippe will leave the Belgian team at the end of the season.

Alaphilippe won the Tour of Britain in 2018, winning stages in Bristol and the Lake District on the way to overall victory. He also finished third on the podium in 2021, narrowly missing out on a second overall victory to Visma-Lease a Bike’s Wout van Aert. 

Van Aert's Visma-Lease a Bike team will not be at the race this year. 

Alaphilippe has already won stages of the Tour of Slovakia, Czech Tour and the Giro d’Italia this year. As well as a stage win in Fano, he also took home the Giro’s combativity award at the end of the race in Rome. 

Alongside the two headline names, British Cycling also confirmed that Ethan Vernon (Israel-Premier Tech) will also be present at the race, as well as Jonas Abramsen (Uno-X Mobility). Vernon recently won a silver medal as part of the GB men’s team pursuit squad at the Paris Olympics. 

Ineos Grenadiers, dsm–firmenich PostNL and Bahrain Victorious complete the WorldTour lineup set to compete in the event. None of the three teams have revealed their roster for the race, but Cycling Weekly understands Tom Pidcock is likely to feature for Ineos. 

Pidcock was recently crowned double Olympic champion in cross-country mountain bike after taking gold in Paris. 

This year’s race will be run over six stages - starting in Kelso on 3 September and wrapping up in Felixstowe, Suffolk on 8 September - with the aim of achieving future parity with the women’s equivalent, the Tour of Britain Women. 

The national governing body’s newly formed major events arm are leading the organisation with Rod Ellingworth acting as race director. Ellingworth was appointed to his role at British Cycling in March.

Full route details were recently announced for the race with more than 5,000 metres of elevation gain on the menu across the first two days of action in Scotland and northern England. The peloton will then head south with stages in South Yorkshire, the East Midlands and Northamptonshire before its conclusion in Suffolk. 

The prize money for last year’s Tour of Britain has still not been settled nearly a year after the race was won by Wout van Aert, Cycling Weekly understands. 

Van Aert and his team, Visma-Lease a Bike, dominated last year’s race - winning five stages and the overall title - but are still without the prize money for their efforts almost 12 months later. Visma sprinter Olav Kooij won four of the team’s five-stage haul alone. 

Sources confirmed this to Cycling Weekly this week, but the prize money situation is not believed to be the sole reason for the team’s absence from the race this year. 

Ineos Grenadiers and Soudal Quick-Step were two of four WorldTour teams recently confirmed for the race, but the Dutch giants were notably absent, after riding four of the last five editions.

Prize money for the race was one of a long list of financial debts owed by the former race promoter, SweetSpot, at the time of the firm’s liquidation in January. The company had endured months of financial turbulence which resulted in British Cycling removing the Tour of Britain race licence from the former promoter over an unpaid licence fee totalling £700,000. 

British Cycling saved both of SweetSpot’s races, the Tour of Britain and Women’s Tour, in February, later rebranding both as the Lloyds Bank Tours of Britain after the bank were later announced as the national governing body’s new title sponsor. 

Speaking in February, British Cycling CEO Jon Dutton committed to dealing with the prize money debt, describing it as one of many issues that the governing body had inherited from the former Tour of Britain promoter. 

"We're aware of it," Dutton said. "We were recently made aware of it and it forms part of a number of legacy issues that we've inherited."

When contacted by Cycling Weekly this week to request an update on the outstanding prize money, a spokesperson for British Cycling confirmed that dialogue was ongoing regarding the situation with an aim of reaching a resolution with the UCI, the CPA rider’s union and other companies like the Dutch-based Cycling Service who handle prize money for a variety of teams, including Visma-Lease a Bike. 

The spokesperson said: "We have been in regular communication with both the UCI and the CPA, who administer the payment of prize monies, over the prize money owed from the 2023 race. 

"Whilst we accept no liability for the debts accrued by the Sweetspot Group, in good faith we have confirmed that we will honour all of the prize money payments from the 2023 race and have shared a payment plan with both the UCI and the CPA."

Full details of the payment plan remain unclear, but sources told Cycling Weekly that the length of the offered plan is between three and five years. It is understood that negotiations are set to continue ahead of this year’s race with the aim of reaching a resolution soon. 

This year’s Lloyds Bank Tour of Britain Men is set to run between 3 and 8 September, with the start taking place in the Scottish borders. 

Remco Evenepoel appeared sceptical when he learned last October that the Tour de France would feature a gravel stage in the heart of the Champagne region this year. 

A hesitant display on the gravel roads of the Giro d’Italia on stage 11 in 2021 was perhaps in the back of the Belgian’s mind when the Tour route was announced in Paris last Autumn. But Evenepoel is not the kind of rider to allow past fear to affect his willingness to race. 

Three years on and Evenepoel came alive on the chemins blancs around Troyes, throwing down the gauntlet to Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar with an aggressive, all-in display, launching a flurry of attacks looking to force a split in the yellow jersey group behind stage winner Anthony Turgis. 

One week into the Tour and Evenepoel, 33 seconds down on Pogačar, is gradually emerging as the Slovenian's biggest challenger for overall victory in Nice, a status he appears perfectly at ease with on debut. 

After collecting a fresh white jersey as best young rider after the stage, Evenepoel said that he had been left disappointed with Vingegaard’s display. While the Belgian and Pogačar looked to light up the race, Vingegaard and his Visma-Lease a Bike teammates preferred to mark attacks and sit on the wheel instead of riding offensively. 

"I think Tadej [Pogačar] and I were not happy with this because I think maybe the podium for the Tour could have been decided today already," Evenepoel told journalists after being asked for his take on Vingegaard’s display. 

"We have to accept race tactics and race situations, but sometimes you also need the balls to race. Unfortunately maybe Jonas didn’t have them today."

He added: "I totally accept the reasons why he didn’t pull, why he didn’t race but of course Tadej and I both like to attack pretty far away from the finish and we wanted to continue, but Jonas is sometimes a bit more defensive. We have to accept it, he will have lots of good reasons to race like this so also I completely understand why.

"I was never in trouble, except for one time on I think sector eight, where there was a bit of a tricky situation just in front of me and I had to close a gap but in the end everything was under control. I had good legs and I'm happy it’s a rest day tomorrow now."

During the chaos of the stage, Vingegaard was forced to change onto the bike of his teammate, Jan Tratnik, after a mechanical issue which  arguably impacted his ability to race. 

"He [Vingegaard] was doing incredible for this situation," Visma-Lease a Bike's Matteo Jorgenson said afterwards. "To have a different reach, different bars, different brakes, everything, it was impressive to see. Also, he’s just so light that on the gravel, it’s just really not suited for him. But he did a really good job and I’m proud of him. I’m just glad we got ourselves out of it."

Despite slight hints of frustration, Evenepoel appeared calm and confident as he dissected the stage, explaining that he looked to take advantage of the weather and "heavy legs" when he launched an attack from distance, looking to disrupt the state of play in the yellow jersey group. 

He said: "I knew that this was one of the last hard sectors that we were going to do on the gravel sectors and I just wanted to go for it, it was a fast cross-tailwind so it made it a very fast sector. If we came to the front group and we had returned all together then I think the race could have been decided there. But like I said, it's a race situation, race tactics and we have to accept that."

Soudal Quick-Step rider Jan Hirt has suffered broken front teeth in an incident with fans ahead of the first stage of the Tour de France. 

The 33-year-old collided with a spectator's bag as he went to sign on before the race in Florence, according to his team manager Patrick Lefevere. Hirt was cleared to start the stage and will be monitored by his team’s medical staff throughout the day. 

Lefevere first revealed the incident on X, writing: “There [are] 100 rules for the team but one with backpack made crashing Jan Hirt between the signings and the bus. 3 teeth broken.”

A Soudal Quick-Step source confirmed the injury to Cycling Weekly, and said the race start was “badly organised”. The team has not released an official statement. 

At the start of the day, metal barriers were constructed around the team paddock, which was initially controlled by security at its entrance. Fans in Florence were quickly able to circumvent the measures, however, lifting the metal barriers or jumping over them to gain access to the team buses. 

At the mixed zone, an area dedicated to press interviews, journalists struggled to reach the riders, as spectators walked through the restricted area. Some members of the media reported the crowds, but were told by security that there was nothing that could be done. 

Cycling Weekly was present in the team paddock, and noticed crowds up to four people deep surrounding certain buses, particularly Visma-Lease a Bike, the team of defending champion Jonas Vingegaard, and world champion Mathieu van der Poel’s Alpecin-Deceuninck. 

A video published on the Cyclingnews Instagram page showed another Soudal Quick-Step rider colliding with a person while trying to cycle between the bus and the sign-on podium. 

Hirt has come to the Tour de France to support his Soudal Quick-Step leader Remco Evenepoel, who is targeting the yellow jersey on his race debut. 

The Czech rider was given leadership duties himself at the Giro d’Italia earlier this year, where he finished 8th, 18 minutes and five seconds behind the winner, Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates).

The Tour de France started today with a hilly stage between Florence and Rimini. 

Hirt lined up for the stage as planned, despite having broken teeth. He was pictured riding behind the peloton in the opening hour. 

Just a handful of months ago, Julian Alaphilippe had been written off by some. Since winning two consecutive road World Championships, the Frenchman had struggled to capture the form that saw him win in Imola in 2020, and Leuven a year later.

The 31-year-old seemed to be struck with the curse of the rainbow jersey, but that didn’t stop the critics from jumping on his misfortune, even those from within his own team. 

Only in February, Alaphilippe stayed dignified and silent when Quick-Step boss Patrick Lefevere suggested in the Belgian press that his wife, former pro and Tour de France Femmes race director Marion Rousse, was partly behind his poor form. 

Instead, he let his legs do the talking, and they answered his critics with an epic performance on Thursday at the Giro d'Italia as he became the 108th man to win stages in all three Grand Tours with victory on stage 12.

This was Alaphilippe back to his best and the kind of form that saw him regularly go toe-to-toe with Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel in Classics seasons gone by. It was full of panache and aggression, as he relished the Classics-style course, littered with short, sharp climbs.

After finding himself in the day’s breakaway, alongside dozens of others, he disappeared up ahead with Mirco Maestri (Polti Kometa) once the hilly course began to bite. The duo were alone for more than 120 kilometres of racing. But, according to Alaphilippe, it was never in his initial thinking to make his move with such a long way to the line. 

"I didn’t plan it," he said post race. "I was expecting a big group to be in the breakaway. I think first I had to help my teammates, who really controlled perfectly the first 60 kilometres. Afterwards, I was really focused to be in the front."

Alaphilippe worked tirelessly with his Italian breakaway compatriot, before distancing him with one venomous attack on the brutally steep final climb. 

"We went first in a big group, and then with Mirco Maestri together," he added. "I said to him, 'we go, we go, we go' he really deserved to win today. He was amazing. We collaborated super well."

In his Worlds winning pomp, Alaphilippe became known for his swashbuckling, energetic style, full of emotion and feeling. Before many of his victories, he’d tighten his shoes and shake out his legs before launching explosive attacks.

He was at it again on Thursday afternoon, tightening the BOA dials on his shoes before the gradients started to rise in the final kilometres of the day. 

"I believed in it, but until the last kilometre, I had to keep pushing full gas because I heard [Jhonatan] Narváez was close behind me," he explained. "It was my dream to win a stage in the Giro, and I did it. I’m really happy."

His stage win couldn’t have come at a better time given that Alaphilippe is in his contract year at Quick-Step. Reports have suggested that he could leave the Belgian team at the end of the season, but victory in Fano could mean a new offer suddenly finds its way to him.

At the start of the year, the 31-year-old told Cycling Weekly that he wasn’t even sure if he would ride on given his misfortune of late. 

"It’s a victory that does me an enormous amount of good," he said as he acknowledged the significance of becoming the 47th French stage winner at the Giro.  

"It is an important victory for me," he continued. "I’m thinking about my partner and my son, who have supported me a lot, recently and always. Also thank you to my whole team, who controlled the start of the stage today really well. I told them that it was a stage I had marked out, and I’m really glad to have managed it."

Prior to stage 12, Alaphilippe’s palmarès contained six individual stages and the mountains classification at the Tour de France, as well as a stint in the yellow jersey, and various accolades from some of cycling’s biggest one day races, including Milan-San Remo. 

It now contains a Giro d’Italia stage win. Proof that there’s life in the former rainbow jersey-wearer yet. 

The decision to adjust the entrance into the Arenberg at Paris-Roubaix, has been praised by Soudal Quick-Step's Kasper Asgreen, who said the speed into the five star sector has become ‘faster and faster’ in recent years. 

Speaking to the media at the team's pre-Roubaix press conference on Thursday, Asgreen said that he felt the peloton would have no issue in navigating the chicane after some questioned the decision. 

Last year’s winner, Mathieu van der Poel, questioned the decision on X and other social media users suggested that it could lead to more crashes. 

"I think it's nice that they took the initiative to do something," Asgreen told the gathered reporters. "Over the last couple of years, the entrance to the Arenberg has become faster and faster and we've seen crashes in the first 200 metres. 

"Clearly something needed to be done. If it's the perfect solution? I don't know but at least it's a step to do something. We will see on Sunday how it all works out."

"I hope there's not going to be a crash," he added. "In the end, we do a lot more important corners where people want to be in the front than we do entrances to the Arenberg during the season. So it's something the bunch are well used to."

After yet another display of dominance from Van der Poel at the Tour of Flanders last weekend, the Dutchman is widely considered to be the firm favourite for victory once more, but Asgreen said that taking the fight to him was key.

"Sunday last week, I think everyone had the idea, almost every team had the idea to try to anticipate his attack," he said. "In the end we saw an incredibly strong Alpecin team that managed to keep it almost all together until the second ascent of the Kwaremont and from there, Mathieu could do the race he wanted to. 

"If they manage to do the same on Sunday, he’s very very difficult to beat. Difficult is not impossible, but I think the key is to open up the race early and try and isolate him. I don't think we will be the only ones that want to do that. 

"I think there are some strong collectives in other teams as well that have an interest to do the same. I think it's going to be a tough race, a great race."

While recon rides have shown the cobbles in a bad state, Asgreen hoped that drier weather would lead to better conditions on the pavé by the time the peloton hit them on Sunday.

"The last time I did the cobbles was in early February," he said. "We will do a recon tomorrow, I've seen some pictures of other teams out there. It looks quite muddy but the next two days look dry, it should dry up pretty quickly on the cobbles and Sunday we could have a very dry race."

The Soudal Quick-Step riders will be on their regular aero bikes, despite Specialized having a bike, the Roubaix, seemingly designed for the cobbles.

"We'll be using our normal Tarmacs," he explained. "Some of us are swapping out handlebars, or adding extra bar tape, depending on personal preference. We will then be swapping to 32 millimetre tires." 

Soudal Quick-Step boss Patrick Lefevere has been ordered to apologise or pay a fine over "public comments considered as disparaging towards women" by cycling's governing body.

The UCI's Ethics Commission announced the suspended fine - 20,000 CHF - in a press release on Thursday afternoon, but did not specify what the comments in question were, only saying that there were "two instances".

The fine will not come into force if Lefevere publicly apologises and does not commit a similar breach within the next three years, according to the UCI. As well as the men's Soudal Quick-Step squad, Lefevere is also involved with the AG Insurance-Soudal Women's WorldTour team.

The Quick-Step team boss came under fire last month for comments regarding his rider Julian Alaphilippe, saying that he was out of form due to "too many parties", also referencing his partner Marion Rousse - the Tour de France Femmes director - in the process.  

Rousse issued a response to the criticism, saying: "Whatever Mr Lefevere's feelings towards me, it is unacceptable to attack our private lives as he is doing... Please now stop talking indiscriminately and show more respect and class." Lefevere later said that his words "sound heavier [in English] than I said them in Dutch", but did not publicly apologise.

Geraint Thomas later described the criticism of Alaphilippe as "bonkers", saying he feels sorry for peers criticised in this way.

Lefevere has also faced a backlash for his criticism of Sam Bennett, in particular for comparing the sprinter to a victim of domestic abuse when he was a rider on his team.

On Thursday, the UCI release read: "Following a report concerning Mr Patrick Lefevere, General Manager of the UCI WorldTeam Soudal Quick-Step, for public comments considered as disparaging towards women, the Ethics Commission confirmed that breaches of articles 5 and 6.1 of the Code of Ethics were committed in two instances.

"Mr Lefevere has been requested to make a public statement recognising the inappropriateness of his statements and apologising therefor. A fine of CHF 20,000 has also been imposed, suspended on condition that Mr Lefevere issues a public statement and does not commit a similar breach of the UCI Code of Ethics within the next three years."

Article 5 outlines how its adherents "shall behave in a dignified manner and act with complete honesty, credibility, impartiality and integrity".

Meanwhile, Article 6.1 is about discrimination, and says: "Persons bound by the Code shall not undertake any action, use any denigratory words, or any other means, that offend the human dignity of a person or group of persons".

Lefevere posted on his social media accounts ahead of the judgement being published, but has not publicly commented since.

Soudal Quick-Step declined to comment when contacted by Cycling Weekly.  

Several years ago, I worked in higher education at a prominent UK university. At that time, I was also a member of Unison - one of Britain’s largest trade unions - whom you could call upon for advice should you ever have the misfortune of experiencing bullying in the workplace. 

By Unison’s definition, workplace bullying is "persistent offensive, intimidating, humiliating behaviour, which attempts to undermine an individual or group of employees". It continues: "Bullying is generally carried out face-to-face but can also occur in writing by telephone, text messaging, email and on social media." 

In most workplaces, bullying wouldn’t be tolerated.

So why is elite sport any different? Why should professional athletes have to tolerate being publicly undermined in the media by their employer? 

Soudal Quick-Step boss Patrick Lefevere has developed a reputation as being one of the biggest culprits of criticising his riders. Lefevere has never been one to shy away from speaking his mind, even if it involves getting personal in relation to a rider, and his latest comments directed at former two-time road World Champion Julian Alaphilippe are yet another example of that. He has done it before, with Alaphilippe, and with Sam Bennett, but it has happened again.

On this occasion, Lefevere brought Alaphilippe’s wife, the Tour de France Femmes' race director Marion Rousse, into the picture as well as suggesting he drinks alcohol excessively. 

"Too many parties, too much alcohol... Julian is seriously under the influence of Marion Rousse," Lefevere said when describing Alaphilippe’s issues to Humo magazine. "Maybe too much. Julian is a young dog full of energy — you should let him cross in the yard every now and then. And you must also say: this far and no further. There is still a bad boy inside him." He went on to claim that he would "fire him on the spot" if it continues. 

Since winning his second world title, it would be fair to say that Alaphilippe hasn’t hit the high notes he’s capable of in a race situation. Various factors have got in the way, including several major crashes as well as bouts of illness, but few would bet against him returning to form at some point, perhaps at a different team away from his scathing boss. 

Inevitably a great deal is expected of riders of his status, particularly when they’re tied to high earning contracts - according to L’Equipe, Alaphilippe was given a raise of more than 2 million euros after landing two rainbow jerseys - so underperforming is going to generate some criticism. 

But alongside that there is surely a line that needn't be crossed? Especially if it turns sour and personal. 

Rousse issued her own response to Lefevere's public attack on Wednesday, saying: "Whatever Mr Lefevere's feelings towards me, it is unacceptable to attack our private lives as he is doing... Please now stop talking indiscriminately and show more respect and class."

At the Tour Down Under, Alaphilippe told Cycling Weekly that he had spent the week building "a good base" in order "to improve from now to my goals." But, he will be out of contract at the end of the current campaign and said "I don’t know where I will be next year, if I continue in the team or if I continue cycling". Comments in the press about being fired "on the spot", surely, cannot help. 

Lefevere’s comments have some similarity to Manchester City Football Club manager Pep Guardiola’s recent public criticism of midfielder Kalvin Phillips. 

Guardiola accused Phillips of being overweight on his return from the 2022 FIFA World Cup. The midfielder recently left the club on loan and told journalists that his confidence had taken a big knock after his managers belittling comments. Guardiola subsequently apologised in a press conference. 

If in Alaphilippe and Phillips’ case athletes do indeed have personal issues, being employed within the public eye should not mean their employer gets a free pass to undermine them in the spotlight of the media and to make those personal issues public. 

Lefevere is far from being the only guilty party in cycling. Israel-Premier Tech boss Sylvan Adams has very publicly criticised Chris Froome in the past and ridiculed his performances. 

Equally, both team bosses have repeatedly expressed their respect for their riders although that hasn’t detracted from the scalding criticism both have received. 

In the wake of Lefevere’s latest bitter attack on a rider, Australian pro Chloe Hosking took to social media to call upon the riders' union, the CPA, to make their stance against this behaviour clear. Cycling Weekly has reached out to the CPA to get their view on the topic. 

In an age in which mental health awareness is frequently discussed within the workplace, perhaps these bosses need an ounce of education. Riders like Alaphilippe deserve better, and the public undermining of sports stars needs to stop.

Update: Patrick Lefevere told the Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad that he made the comments about Julian Alaphilippe's private life in 2022. Nevertheless, he did not apologise for the comments made about Rousse. 

"I am considering making a statement on Twitter, because once again my words in English – without the context of the interview – sound heavier than I said them in Dutch," he told the Belgian daily.

"What did I say? José De Cauwer is my witness: not last year [the conversation he had with Alaphilippe], but in November 2022 I took Julian Alaphilippe aside in Diegem [at a team meeting]. To say: things cannot continue like this. Either I let you go, or we’re going to do things differently from now on. My message was: ‘talent alone will no longer work. You get older and have to live differently.’ Julian has performed big numbers in the Tour, but at the time they were no other, or less pronounced, top performers such as Mathieu Van der Poel, Tadej Pogačar and Primož Roglič that he is now competing against.

"There was a period with too many parties, but I have to say: he hasn’t had a drink since our conversation in November 2022. Not within the team and not outside the team. I have spoken to people who were with him on the internship in Sierra Nevada: not a drop more. And training has never been a problem, he has always continued to do so.

"At a certain point Julian lost his self-confidence. He remains valuable to the team. He says that press conferences stress him out, but he is actually a perfect sandwich man. He recently went to Cologne for a publicity assignment at Safety Jogger, no problem. Publicity-wise, he remains God in France. Only: I also want results and there have been too few. It must be more than the Faun-Ardèche Classic."

After just one week of racing in 2024, Remco Evenepoel already appears to be up to speed, which is a good omen for the Belgian ahead of what's set to be his biggest summer yet with a Tour de France debut on the horizon. 

Prior to landing a third Volta ao Algarve overall victory last weekend, Evenepoel had already won his first race of the year, the Figueira Champions Classic, demonstrating some fine form. 

He wasn’t the only Belgian to flourish in Portugal either. Wout van Aert ended the stage race in the Algarve with his first victory on the road of the new campaign as well as a respectable seventh overall in the general classification. 

As well as that, Van Aert ended the week with a blistering final day attack which temporarily put his countryman under pressure in the fight for the overall race win. It was a foreboding sign for his rivals as the Visma-Lease A Bike man returns to Belgium ahead of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad this weekend, a race he has won before and will inevitably fly high in this time out. 

All things considered, the week couldn’t have gone much better for Evenepoel and his Soudal Quick-Step teammates, even if he twice finished second. A first time trial victory for the 24-year-old in his rainbow jersey that he won in Scotland last summer, as well as some impressive racing in the mountains of the Algarve.

Mikel Landa was making his stage race debut for his new team after joining during the winter. The Basque was in the thick of the action as he worked to keep Evenepoel well positioned throughout the final mountain stage.

Landa brings GC riding experience and tactical nous to Patrick Lefevere’s team and his performance in Portugal showed that his partnership with Quick-Step’s talisman looks set to be a promising one. 

On the road to the Alto do Malhão summit, Landa was instrumental in maintaining calm within his team after Van Aert had disappeared up the road along with EF Education’s Ben Healy, temporarily putting Evenepoel’s overall race lead in jeopardy. 

While Quick-Step worked to reel back in the attackers, Landa masterfully kept himself out of the wind for as long as possible, avoiding any form of exposure to the elements, before astutely moving up to put in one huge effort ahead of the climb which brought Evenepoel back into contention for the stage victory he’d made clear he wanted. A solid display of experience which will have left Quick-Step's management smiling.

Resilience in the mountains 

Evenepoel may have missed out on a mountain stage win - finishing runner up to Bora-Hansgrohe’s Dani Martinez on stages two and five - but can take huge positives from his showing on the climbs nonetheless. 

Martinez has quite a turn of speed on mountain top finishes, but Evenepoel went toe to toe with the Colombian and may well have won stage two if there had been just another few metres of road. 

Most impressively, on stage five, the former road world champion rode the entirety of the Alto do Malhão in his big chain ring after a mechanical issue with his bike materialised right as the ascent began.

“I had to do it in my 54-tooth chainring, in the final my chain could no longer fit on the inner ring,” Evenepoel explained post race. “I had to do the entire climb on the big ring, even though I prefer to climb on a high cadence. That cost me the energy that I needed in the sprint, it killed my legs a bit.”

“It's a shame because doing a climb that goes close to 20 per cent was pretty difficult, and I think I could definitely have won," he added. "But that’s life, worse things can happen and I am of course very happy with the final overall win.”

Winning the Tour de France is never straightforward. Potential winners more often than not have to overcome hurdles by way of bike issues, crashes or attacks from their rivals across the three weeks of action. 

Evenepoel’s display of his ability to bounce back on stage five in the Algarve is yet another sign of his resilience and, along with his other performances in Portugal, will no doubt fill him with huge levels of confidence as the road to the Florence Grand Départ continues. 

Patrick Lefevere's long-term successor as the man in charge of the Soudal Quick-Step outfit appears to have been found, with the team announcing a new Chief Operations Officer on Thursday.

Jurgen Foré, the son of former Paris Roubaix, Tour of Flanders and Gent-Wevelgem winner Noël Foré, will join Lefevere’s team from Deloitte in the new year to take on the daily management of the project.

Lefevere will turn 69 in January and recently indicated that his team appeared to have found his successor. Lefevere first worked as a directeur sportif on the Quick-Step team, and then eventually became general manager, after ending his career as a rider in 1979. He has made it clear in recent months that he is looking for a way to step back from cycling after his decades in the sport.

53-year-old Foré appears to be the man that was alluded to in Lefevere’s Het Nieuwsblad interview. Lefevere said a COO had been found last weekend.

“That’s not a simple quest, because I can’t get it wrong,” he said. 

“I always joke that 'with thirty riders per season I can get one transfer wrong'. Not in the role of successor. But we have found someone who will start in a role as COO.” 

Foré will oversee the sporting management of the team of Remco Evenepoel which will include making decisions on race calendars, rider programmes, rider recruitment and retainment. 

As well as hailing from a family rich in cycling history, Foré also has experience of working with Flanders Classics - the organiser of the Tour of Flanders amongst other races - and he has previously worked with the Lotto-Dstny team. 

Speaking of his appointment, Foré said: “I am excited because for me it is things coming together – I was a cyclist up to the age of 23, where life made me make some other choices. 

“I went for a different professional career, in consulting, which means that I can now combine my love for cycling with my professional experience. 

“I am passionate about getting the best out of a team and organisation, and it all comes together in this role, which is a unique opportunity that excites me.”

In the press release from Soudal Quick-Step, Patrick Lefevere said he was “delighted” to have Foré on board. 

“He is a man that has an impressive CV, that mixes both a love and knowledge of cycling, with business and executive acumen and experience. 

"He will help to develop our team to be even more successful both as an organisation and a business, as well as sportingly, and I know everybody at Soudal Quick-Step is looking forward to working with him.”

Former Quick-Step DS Brian Holm recently told Cycling Weekly that who would eventually replace Lefevere was often a hot topic of discussion in his days working for the team. 

He said: “He's 68, it's about time to think about his retirement because what he's doing is a very, very tough job and he's had the job since like 1979. So sooner or later, we all have to pull out.

“I mean, it's just a matter of time [until Lefevere steps down]… A big thing we always talked about when I was a DS at the team was who will take over after Patrick? Nobody can do his job, nobody. 

“I was there 10 years and I told Patrick, who can take over after you? It's such a big job…. It’s a 24 hour job.”

Meanwhile, Quick-Step rider programmes and objectives for 2024 are still to be confirmed. Nevertheless it is widely expected that Remco Evenepoel will make his Tour de France debut in 2024 and the likes of Kasper Asgreen will lead the team's Classics squad. 

The proposed merger between Jumbo-Visma and Soudal Quick-Step is off, according to reports in Belgium. It is not known what caused the deal to collapse, or what will happen to the two teams in the future.

On Friday afternoon, Sporza, Het Nieuwsblad and Het Laatse Nieuws all published pieces that said that the planned merge between Quick-Step and Jumbo was no longer, and that the former would continue under the stewardship of Patrick Lefevere and his financial backer Zdenek Bakala until 2025.

In an interview published earlier on Friday by HLN, Quick-Step's star rider, Remco Evenepoel, said: “We just don't know anything,” 

“I only know what you know, what you write," he said. "At the moment there are only question marks, for everyone. All we can do is wait. And hope it turns out well. We cannot estimate what will come our way in the next ten days or two weeks."

Reports emerged last week that two of the top teams in cycling, the Dutch Jumbo-Visma, and the Belgian Soudal Quick-Step, were to merge, posing questions not just about the future of the team's riders and staff, but about cycling's sustainability as a sport.

However, those proposals now seem to be over. This is despite Lefevere revealing last week that a "letter of intent to merge" was signed earlier this year, and that plans for Jumbo to absorb some of the existing Quick-Step team. There had also been reports that a phoenix Quick-Step squad would continue with the riders who did not make the jump across to the new team.

Jumbo-Visma had reportedly attracted sponsorship from Amazon, but it is not clear what the financial benefit of the deal actually is, with the €15 million figure touted last week including media value. Dutch newspaper AD said on Friday that this deal was off, too.

It has not been an easy fortnight for riders on Soudal Quick-Step. Following his win at Tre Valli Varesine this week, Ilan Van Wilder said that he does not want the merger to go ahead, he wants his team to continue. 

"This victory is for our staff and my teammates, to show we don't agree with all this shit, and we want to continue Soudal-QuickStep," he said after soloing to victory in Varese. "We are strong enough and I hope it will be like this."

Wielerflits reported on Tuesday that just six riders would head across from Soudal Quick-Step to Jumbo-Visma, and it was thought to include Evenepoel. However, now the deal is off, the future team of the young Belgian is still up in the air.

In a statement on Tuesday afternoon, reacting to what were just reports, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), said: "Any such operation must comply with the procedures and provisions set out in the UCI Regulations which, in particular, make it possible to ensure compliance with the contractual provisions for all personnel of the teams in question (riders, but also team management and other staff such as doctors, mechanics, sports assistants, drivers, etc.), which is of prime importance to the UCI."

There will be just 17 teams on the WorldTour next year, should the proposed merger between Jumbo-Visma and Soudal Quick-Step occur, the UCI, cycling's governing body, has said.

Reports emerged last week that two of the top teams in cycling, the Dutch Jumbo-Visma, and the Belgian Soudal Quick-Step, were to merge, posing questions not just about the future of the team's riders and staff, but about cycling's sustainability as a sport.

In a statement on Tuesday afternoon, reacting to what - at the moment - are just reports, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), said: "Any such operation must comply with the procedures and provisions set out in the UCI Regulations which, in particular, make it possible to ensure compliance with the contractual provisions for all personnel of the teams in question (riders, but also team management and other staff such as doctors, mechanics, sports assistants, drivers, etc.), which is of prime importance to the UCI."

On the number of teams on the WorldTour - which is currently 18 - the UCI said: "If the continuity of one of the teams could not be guaranteed for the 2024 season, the number of UCI WorldTeams would be 17 for the 2024 and 2025 seasons. 

"As a result, the number of UCI ProTeams that are automatically invited to UCI WorldTour events would increase, in accordance with the provisions of article 2.1.007bis of the UCI Regulations."

Last week, Israel-Premier Tech and Uno-X both expressed an interest in a spot in the WorldTour should one become available; it now seems that this would not be an option. When Intermarché-Circus-Wanty joined the WorldTour in 2020, they bought the licence from CCC, which ceased to exist.

The UCI also reminded teams of their responsibility to register for an administrative, financial, and ethical check. 

"Any significant change in a team's situation must be duly reported during the upcoming registration procedure so it can be assessed, in accordance with the UCI Regulations," it said.

Furthermore, the UCI said that it would publish an initial press release containing the list of teams that have submitted the essential information on October 19; any riders belonging to a team not included on the list would then be able to join another team,  "without giving prior notice or paying compensation, in accordance with the provisions contained in the standard contract".

This week, both Soudal and Visma have confirmed their interest in maintaining title sponsor status should the proposed merger go ahead.

Speaking to Belgian outlet WielerFlits, Visma's director of content and sponsorship said that the deal to sponsor the team has a "long-term perspective" that should be ongoing.

"In terms of the future, we entered into this sponsorship in 2019 with a long-term perspective," said Anne-Grethe Thomle Karlsen. "As long as both parties see common value in this collaboration, that will not change."

Soudal's sponsorship and corporate communications manager told Het Laatste Nieuws that they also aimed to stay on board the project.

"Name sponsorship is our strength," said Marko Heijl. "It provides return on investment. Our marketing strategy is focussed on that, and until further notice there is no reason to deviate from it.

"We made a contractual commitment at the time as an enthusiastic name sponsor, and it is our ambition to remain so."

The merged super-team would also count on investment from Amazon, but it is unclear how much this would actually be in monetary value.

Wielerflits also reported on Tuesday that just six riders would make the jump from Soudal Quick-Step to Jumbo-Visma, with the merger also likely to see dozens of staff without jobs.

The new Jumbo-Visma and Soudal Quick-Step mega-merger team has attracted its first new major sponsor.

According to a report from Wielerflits, it was announced by Dutch marketer Chris Woerts on the Today Inside television programme that Amazon will come on board as one of the new financiers for the new super team project.

Wielerflits' reports that the American e-commerce company will not be one of the title sponsors of the new team, but will act as a co-sponsor instead.

Amazon has worked closely with Richard Plugge’s Jumbo-Visma team in recent years. Last year a fly on the wall documentary titled ‘All in team Jumbo-Visma’ was available on the Amazon Prime streaming service.

The report from the Dutch cycling news outlet also states that the documentary will have a follow up series which will be broadcast later this year. The new episodes will take a closer look at the individual Grand Tour victories of Primož Roglič, Jonas Vingegaard and Sepp Kuss.

Roglič won the Giro d’Italia in May before Vingegaard took his second Tour de France title in July. Kuss then rounded out the team's stunning season with victory at the recent Vuelta a España. It was the American’s first-ever Grand Tour win. 

News first broke of the new merger earlier this week. It’s widely believed that Soudal and Visma have been involved in the discussions from the start with both companies leading the way to become the title sponsors of the new team.

Speaking to Cycling Weekly, former Quick-Step DS Brian Holm said that he believes the merger is the only way to “save the future” of Patrick Lefevere’s Quick-Step project.

He said: “For me, it would actually be quite good for Quick-Step because imagine he will stop in two years and nobody takes over? The team would stop because nobody can do his job in the team, nobody.”

“That would be a sad day for cycling,” he added. “People love to hate him but as far I'm concerned, he's one of the best things that's happened for cycling, the job he's done. People will realise that when he's gone."

Brian Holm believes that Soudal Quick-Step merging with Jumbo-Visma is the best way to safeguard the future of his former team.

Earlier this week, it was first reported by Dutch outlet Wielerflits that Patrick Lefevere’s Quick-Step squad were potentially set to partner with Jumbo-Visma to form one WorldTour 'super team'.

Wielerflits then reported on Thursday evening that Amazon will become one of the first co-sponsors of the new WorldTour project.

Holm previously served as a directeur sportif under Lefevere at Quick-Step, and told Cycling Weekly before the Amazon news broke that he thinks the merger will "save the future" of his former team.

“I know Patrick of course, but I have never spoken to him about this," Holm said. "So for me it was a surprise also the initial story, I did not see that coming at first.

“But now I think about it, with Patrick Lefevere, he's 68, it's about time to think about his retirement because what he's doing is a very, very tough job and he's had the job since like 1979. So sooner or later, we all have to pull out.

“I mean, it's just a matter of time… A big thing we always talked about when I was a DS at the team was who will take over after Patrick? Nobody can do his job, nobody. I was there 10 years and I told Patrick, who can take over after you? It's such a big job…. It’s a 24 hour job.

“I always thought when Patrick quits, the team would probably fold.”

Holm added that two teams merging wasn't usually a good thing for the sport, as it meant there was one less established team in the top flight.  

“But in another way it could save the future of Quick-Step because he [Lefevere] will still be there, but just on the board," he said.

“For me, it would actually be quite good for Quick-Step because imagine he will stop in two years and nobody takes over? The team would stop because nobody can do his job in the team, nobody.”

“That would be a sad day for cycling,” he added. “People love to hate him but as far I'm concerned, he's one of the best things that's happened for cycling, the job he's done. People will realise that when he's gone. 

"I mean all the woke people, they hate him, but the riders love him, and his staff too. I'm the first one to say he can be a bit wacky, but I love him, you know, he can be a difficult man but he knows about cycling, and that's a fact.

"I really get along with him. He's the sort of guy that I could call him 24 hours a day. I could discuss anything with him when I was there, he was always clear and I would always really like that.”

Holm explained that during his time working under Lefevere everyone knew where they sat in the team’s hierarchy and setup.

“At Quick-Step, the boss is always Patrick, and the sports directors are the bosses too,” he said. “It's always a little bit 'shut the f**k up and you do what we're telling you.' The riders know it is good for them, because in many teams you can see now in modern cycling, many days you see the cyclists are the bosses, they make their own decisions.

“In many, many teams, not many sports directors make decisions anymore, the key rider gets to make the tough decisions. I've always liked Quick-Step because the riders always listen to the sports directors because at the end of the day, we want to do the best for everybody."

He added that riders could be "like kids" and a sports director "has to teach them".

He said: "Riders like it when you make firm decisions.”

Mark Cavendish is set to be reunited with his former coach, Vasilis Anastopoulos, who worked with the Manxman at Soudal Quick-Step for his final pro season at Astana Qazaqstan.

According to Ciro Scognamiglio of La Gazetta dello Sport who first broke the story, Anastopoulos is expected to leave the Belgian team to join Cavendish at Astana.

Cycling Weekly has since had confirmation from Soudal Quick-Step that Anastopoulos is set to leave the team.

Another source with knowledge of the situation has also confirmed that the 47-year-old will join Astana Qazaqstan next year.  

On Tuesday afternoon it was reported that Cavendish had reached an agreement with Astana boss Alexander Vinokourov to continue racing in 2024.

Anastopoulos’ imminent arrival at Vinokourov’s team all but confirms that Cavendish will postpone retirement for another year and race on.

The Greek ex-pro turned coach was instrumental in getting Cavendish back to winning ways in 2021, when he won four stages of the Tour de France.

That year Cycling Weekly named Cavendish our Male Rider of the Year.

Speaking about his relationship with the coach when they first met at Quick-Step Cavendish said: "Vasi is quite loud, quite assertive over what he wants and thinks, but if you take a second to listen to what he’s saying, those hairs stop going off on your back.

"He asked me to come to his room and we met and he just laid himself and his plans out and it put me at ease as he knew what he was talking about.”

The legendary British sprinter is the current joint record holder for the most stage wins at the French Grand Tour. Cavendish is tied on 34 wins with Eddy Merckx and narrowly missed out on a 35th victory earlier this year.

In July he showed he can still conjure the form necessary to win a 35th stage. On stage seven in Bordeaux, the 38-year-old finished second to eventual green jersey winner Jasper Philipsen with a late mechanical issue with his bike preventing him from crossing the line first.

After Cavendish’s impressive showing, Astana were then struck by disaster 24 hours later when a heavy crash forced the Manxman to abandon. It was later confirmed that he had fractured his collarbone in the incident.

In May Cavendish announced at the Giro d'Italia that he would retire from professional cycling at the end of the current season.

However, in the aftermath of his withdrawal from the Tour Astana boss Vinokourov told Cycling Weekly on the Puy de Dôme that he would be open to Cavendish continuing racing with the team in 2024.

“We’re leaving Mark to recover, and then we will see,” said Vinokourov, when asked about a possible contract extension.

“Maybe he’ll come to Paris and we will see. I am ready. Of course, it’s not easy to continue at a good level, but we saw today [9 July, stage nine to the Puy de Dôme] a rider like [Michael] Woods, 36, and he won. I think Mark can, too. We need to be stronger, but he didn’t dream to finish his career like this.”

If the team is to make Cavendish another contract offer, it is unlikely it will be for the entire season. “Six months for the Tour is enough,” Vinokourov explained, “for our goal, our dream. It would be realistic.”

Cycling Weekly approached Astana for comment regarding Cavendish’s contract situation on Tuesday but the team declined to provide any update on discussions.

With Anastopoulos’ expected arrival, along with Danish rider Michael Mørkøv from Quick-Step, it appears increasingly likely that an announcement on Cavendish’s future could be imminent.

Mørkøv recently told Ekstra Bladet that he will leave his current team at the end of the year. The Danish rider has since been heavily linked with a move to Astana.

Astana have already strengthened their lead-out train for next season with the acquisition of Davide Ballerini from the Belgian team along with Ide Schelling from Bora-Hansgrohe.

Cavendish is expected to return to racing action at the Presidential Cycling Tour of Türkiye next month where he is likely to face Alpecin-Deceuninck’s Philipsen.

Cycling Weekly has approached Astana Qazaqstan for comment once more regarding the expected arrival of Anastopoulos but the team had not responded at the time of going to press.  

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." 

No, not the opening line of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, but a tale about the proposed merger between Jumbo-Visma and Soudal Quick-Step. Both of cycling’s biggest and most successful teams of the last decade, seem to be looking for a wife - apparently prompted by the financial difficulties of running a successful cycling squad in 2023.

With the top riders that both men's teams have, from Jonas Vingegaard, Wout van Aert and Primož Roglič at Jumbo-Visma and Remco Evenepoel, Julian Alaphilippe and Tim Merlier at Soudal Quick-Step. A super-team would take some beating.

But it is not a foregone conclusion that a marriage between the two squads would be a happy one.

The consequences are huge, and overwhelming; the questions it poses about the financial sustainability of the sport, too, are legion. If Jumbo-Visma, winners of all three Grand Tours this year, cannot find a suitable title sponsor, then what hope is there for any other team?

The original Wielerflits story has seemingly come completely out of the blue, for almost everyone. The only people seemingly involved are those at the very top of both teams, with riders left in the dark until the news broke. Everyone Cycling Weekly has spoken to has expressed surprise at the news.

While the likelihood of this all coming to pass is very much up in the air, and it might not happen until 2025 anyway, we thought it was well worth taking a run through the live questions and potential consequences of the mega merger. 

What happens to the riders?

The riders at both Jumbo-Visma and Soudal Quick-Step were both apparently taken aback by the news, and the idea that their livelihoods might be under threat should the merger materialise. 

GCN reported on Tuesday that Quick-Step's riders had received a letter from team boss Patrick Lefevere apologising for uncertainity, acknowledging “ongoing discussions with various parties in the last month", but saying that "however, there are no concrete projects and plans at this moment".

A union between the two men's teams would leave a lot of riders on the open market. Men's WorldTour teams are only allowed 30 riders; Jumbo-Visma currently have 22 riders under contract for 2024, with Soudal Quick-Step having 23. 45 does not go into 30.

Therefore, there would be a lot of top riders on the market, and contracts for riders without deals for next year would be less likely. Riders still under contract who do not have a spot in the merger would need to be compensated, which would add up.

Contracts are tied to the paying agent and there can be only one agent and one license, so riders on the team which is being subsumed - which many people seem to assume would be Quick-Step - would be free to leave.

The other issue with riders would be the new relationships within the super-team. Would Wout van Aert, Christophe Laporte and Tiesj Benoot want to ride on the same Classics team as Julian Alaphilippe, Yves Lampaert and Kasper Asgreen? Would this even be possible? It might very well be a case of too many cooks.

Let's not even get into the knotty issue of Grand Tour leadership, as a team with Remco Evenepoel, Primož Roglič, Sepp Kuss and Jonas Vingegaard would surely pose problems when it came to taking someone to the Tour de France. How do you manage all of those potential winners?

What about the women's teams?

Both Jumbo-Visma and Soudal Quick-Step have connected women's teams: Jumbo-Visma, and AG Insurance-Soudal-Quick-Step. The former is a WorldTour team, while the latter is currently a Continental team, but was thought to be joining the top tier next season. AG Insurance also has an under-23 development team , AG Insurance-NXTG U23, and and under-19 team, which further complicates matters.

A quote given to Cyclingnews, by a representative of Jumbo-Visma, was interesting in respect of the women's teams: "I don’t expect much is going to happen with our women’s team. For the rest, we never comment on rumours."

So perhaps these will stay separate, while the men's squads unite? Who knows. Jumbo-Visma is the home of one of the greatest riders of all time, Marianne Vos, and Dutch champion Riejanne Markus, while AG Insurance has Ashleigh Moolman Pasio. 

With Jumbo-Visma having 12 riders under contract for 2024, and AG Insurance-Soudal-Quick-Step having just four, the teams could merge and still be under the 20-rider WWT cap, but it still seems unnecessarily messy. 

They are separate teams with separate staffs and everything, just like the men's squads, so that's more potential issues.

That said, a management that is used to having oversight of both men's and women's squad may decide it's worth the hassle to combine the two, eventually even if not on day one.

What happens to Remco Evenepoel?

Let's get into it. 

There have been rumours swirling around Remco Evenepoel all season, with the young Belgian heavily linked with a move away from Quick-Step, with Ineos Grenadiers rumoured to be a possible destination for the 23-year-old. Indeed the entire Soudal-Quick-Step squad has previously been linked with a merger with Ineos. 

Evenepoel has a contract with Quick-Step until the end of 2026, but a merger might provide the perfect opportunity for the time trial world champion to jump ship.

While he has quashed these reports in recent weeks, the idea has now resurfaced thanks to the prospect of Soudal-Visma, or Visma-Soudal. Why would he want to ride at the same team as Jonas Vingegaard and Primož Roglič, and possibly miss out on an opportunity to target the races he wants to?

On his podcast, Watts Occuring, Ineos Grenadiers rider Geraint Thomas jokingly gave further insight into how this matchup might not work.

"The only thing I would say now is: Remco hates Jumbo and Jumbo hates Remco, that's not going to work, is it?” the former Tour de France winner said. “You should hear what Roglič says about Remco. I don't want to start any rumours, I'm just saying. Why would Jumbo even want this?"

There have been rumours about Evenepoel, but also about Primož Roglič, who has been linked with a move to Lidl-Trek. Their final destination is still very much up in the air.

What happens to the spare WorldTour licence?

One interesting consequence of a Quick-Step x Jumbo merger would be what happened to the leftover WorldTour licence. With one team effectively disappearing, there would be a spare spot at the top table of teams, and surely there would be no shortage of teams vying for that spot?

It is unknown what the process of tendering out that licence would be; we contacted the UCI but to no avail. Whether any team with the licence would acquire the previous squad's existing UCI points is also an open question.

Cycling Weekly understands that Israel-Premier Tech would be interested in the spare WorldTour licence, and that contact has been made with a potential seller, but the team would not enter a bidding war for WorldTour status.

The same is true for Uno-X, who have always been clear on wanting to be part of the WorldTour, but would not risk everything to be a part of it.

Speaking to Cycling Weekly on Monday, general manager Jens Haugland said: "We have our very clear identity and philosophy, and we have been very clear about sticking to that and not purchasing our way to the top, so to speak. 

"But if there's a licence available with no obligations in terms of staff or riders, or anything, we are saying that we are aiming for a WorldTour licence, so of course we're interested in that. But that has to be in very special circumstances. There would be other teams in line ahead of us in this case."

On the other hand, two other prominent ProTeams, Q36.5 and Lotto Dstny, have said they are not interested in taking a spare WorldTour licence, should it become available. 

"It’s not like the WT-license comes suddenly available for free. There are several steps to take, financially as well," Lotto's CEO, Stéphane Heulot, said.

"Off course it is our wish to return to the WT, step-by-step, progressively, growing every year and grab enough points on the way to earn that license in 2026. 

"We don’t want to rush things to get in the World Tour again and we will take the time so that our team is strong enough to battle on the highest level in all races."

What happens to the staff?

A team is not just 30 riders, it is all the mechanics, soigneurs, the bus drivers, chefs, social media admins, press officers and even more. At races like the Tour de France, Jumbo-Visma especially has had an overwhelming number of people on staff, in every different role you can think of - that is one reason behind it's rise to the best team in the world.

Should the squads merge, it doesn't just mean riders out of contract, but lots of people behind the scenes. This might be the true tragedy behind the reports.

In the context of these job losses, questions over who leads the super-team at the Tour de France and what colour kit they would wear seem minor.

As do thoughts over Patrick Lefevere's future role in a Richard Plugge-led team - as the original reporting had it - but it has to be mentioned that these two seem like unnatural bedfellows.

What happens to the equipment sponsorships?

As well as separate identities, riders, and staff, the two teams already have existing sponsorship deals for everything from bikes to helmets via shoes. How these are combined into one merged squad, nobody knows.

Specialized's deal with Quick-Step is though to last until 2026, although the American brand replied with a polite "no comment" when asked about the potential goings on. Cervèlo, likewise, have a longstanding deal with Jumbo, and they told Cycling Weekly that they are not party to any discussions; they would be eventually, though.

What happens to the separate deals on bottle cages, groupsets, or sunglasses, is also very much up in the air. 

Jumbo-Visma is in talks with Patrick Lefevere’s Soudal Quick-Step team about forming a potential merger of the two WorldTour giants as soon as 2024, according to a special report from Wielerflits, released on Sunday.

According to Wielerflits, Jumbo-Visma’s managing director Richard Plugge would become the CEO of the new squad, Merijn Zeeman would become new head coach, and Patrick Lefevere would become a member of the new teams supervisory board.

Any potential deal between the two men's teams could see Remco Evenepoel, Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard, and this year’s Giro d'Italia winner Primož Roglič become teammates.

Other riders on the joint roster would include the likes of Wout van Aert and Julian Alaphilippe.

The report states that initial talks between the two teams are believed to have begun last summer and that Jumbo-Visma top brass approached Zdenek Bakala - the Soudal Quick-Step owner - which led to a meeting in Geneva, Switzerland.

As well as this, the report also suggests that the proposed merger was supported by the title sponsors from both teams, Soudal and Visma.

Consequently if the merger between the two is eventually confirmed, it’s likely that the project would be registered with the UCI as either Soudal-Visma or Visma -Soudal. 

Earlier this summer, Dutch supermarket chain Jumbo confirmed that its co-title sponsorship of Jumbo-Visma was set to end after the 2024 season if not earlier. Richard Plugge has been working to find a replacement major international sponsor for his team.

The Dutch team was linked to the Saudi Arabian Neom development project, however, the report was described as “fake news” by a source speaking to Cyclingnews.

It is unknown how a potential merger would affect the riders and other staff on both teams, particularly those with lengthy contracts. Both squads currently have 29 riders each contracted to their men’s teams, and the maximum number of riders on a team is 30. How it would affect bike, tech and gear sponsors is also unknown.

Riders like Matteo Jorgenson and Ben Tulett have already signed deals to join Jumbo next season, while Mikel Landa and Luke Lamperti are among those who have been announced as moving to Quick-Step for 2024.

Important questions remain regarding the future of the two team’s women’s squads if a merger were to happen. Jumbo-Vimsa is currently part of the Women’s WorldTour and is led by Dutch superstar Marianne Vos, while AG Insurance-Soudal Quick-Step currently has a Continental licence, but has applied to join the WorldTour for 2024.

When questioned on the subject by Cyclingnews, a representative of Jumbo-Visma said: "I don’t expect much is going to happen with our women’s team. For the rest, we never comment on rumours."

Cycling Weekly approached both Jumbo-Visma and Soudal Quick-Step for comment in relation to this story.

This Tour de France is not going to plan for Fabio Jakobsen. On stage 10, a horrifically hot and humid day in the Massif Central, the Soudal-QuickStep rider was dropped early on by an increase in pace at the front, and eventually crossed the line more than 30 minutes after winner Pello Bilbao alongside his sprint rival Caleb Ewan [Lotto-Dstny]

Soaked in sweat, salt patches all over his jersey and shorts, and his injuries from his stage four crash still bandaged up, Jakobsen didn’t try and sugarcoat the difficulties he endured when asked by Cycling Weekly how his day went.

“Hard. A hard stage. Not a good day,” he summarised. “You hope for it to be better but it wasn’t.”

Asked why he struggled so much, he responded: “I have no idea. I have no explanation. Maybe it’s the crash [but] I hope to be better.”

He later told the Dutch broadcaster NOS that “on a day like today you start doubting everything: your preparation, whether you have trained enough for the climbs. Everything goes through your head. Today was really bad. But we’re still here. Tomorrow we will sprint again.”

Stage 11 is expected to finish with a bunch sprint in Moulins, but Jakobsen’s team were not completely convinced that that would materialise, citing a fatigued peloton with an eye on the Alps and the scorching hot temperatures.

“For the whole team today was a tough day, and [tomorrow] you [would] still have to control the race, so maybe the breakaway goes tomorrow,” the team’s DS Tom Steels mooted. “You never know: you have to have the manpower to control the race, and Ewan was also behind [on stage 10] so we will see. 

“We will see how Fabio wakes up but if he says he doesn’t feel 100% then we have to take it like this. We still have two weeks to go.”

Questioned whether or not there is faith among the team that Jakobsen - who announced on the rest day that he would be riding for dsm-firmenich from next season - Steels played a straight bat.

“If we have to go to Paris to a win stage, we will do,” he said wryly. “Fabio’s crash changed a lot for him. He was so bruised and battered and we take it as it is. Now he is recovered, he is in good condition, and today was not easy but he survived. 

“You know how hard the Tour is: if you miss a few percentages to stay with the top guys, then you have to fight the whole way to get good results. He is feeling OK. he is improving, getting there. The spirit in the team is OK… we have to pick our days now.”

Read more: Baby drama: Wout van Aert quashes rumour he’s set to leave Tour de France

Iljo Keisse, meanwhile, was a teammate of Jakobsen’s until this season when he took up a sport director’s role immediately after his retirement. He told Cycling Weekly that while some riders “really don’t like” rest days and that “they can be blocked and get dropped really early on the day after”, for Jakobsen the day off racing was a positive event. 

“Mentally it was, but also for his injuries that are healing fast," Keisse said. "These stages are not easy for him - heat, the mountains - but we still have hope that he can try and go for a win tomorrow.”

When Jacobsen was asked if he can win on stage 11, he simply said: “I have no idea.”

Ethan Hayter has won races on the track and on the road, and has proved himself adept at the kind of punchy finishes that also favour the likes of Wout van Aert and Julian Alaphilippe. He might not have the same presence as his teammate and compatriot Tom Pidcock, but he is still one to watch in the coming years.

He first burst onto the scene in 2018, winning a gold medal at the Track World Championships as part of the team pursuit squad. He also won gold at the European Track Championships in the Omnium that same summer.

After racing with Team Sky as a trainee in 2018, he joined what is now Ineos Grenadiers full time in 2020, having impressed at under-23 level the year before. Now he races for Soudal Quick-Step.

Since then, he has combined his track and road talents, continuing to perform and win on both.

By the way, if you know Hayter's nickname, or you want to come up with one, do let us know.

1. Ethan Hayter came into cycling through the Herne Hill Velodrome, the storied venue in south London which was also instrumental in the early careers of Bradley Wiggins, Fred Wright, and Tom Gloag. The velodrome was used as the location of the track events at the 1948 London Olympics.

2. He was top of the year in the bleep test at school, which makes sense, given his aerobic powers now.

3. He joined VC Londres, the club connected to Herne Hill, in 2012, aged 13. The club also supported Wright, Gloag, Joanna Rowsell Shand, and Flora Perkins, among others.

4. His younger brother, Leo, born three years after Ethan, also followed him to Herne Hill and VCL. They are now even on the same WorldTour team, Ineos Grenadiers.

5. Ethan started out borrowing racing bikes from VCL before getting his own. His dad, Tim, told The British Continental in 2021: "In 2013, he decided he wanted to do the Assen Youth Tour, which meant he wanted to get a better bike. That was fine, but then things started escalating a bit. He persuaded my dad to buy him some Fast Forward wheels, so that’s 600 quid, which is quite a lot of money. That was a bit of an investment.”

6. Hayter won one of his first races on a £600 bike. Recounting the story, Mark Patterson, VCL's then chairman, told Cycling Weekly in 2021: "When I have Ethan on a call [with the young members] I always get him to say how he won his first national on a Decathlon £600 bike, beating other people riding £3-4,000 bikes. That’s the sort of message I always try to get people to understand.”

7. He gave up his A-Level studies (maths, physics and chemistry) to join British Cycling's senior academy in 2016.

8. Hayter won his first British junior track titles in 2015, in the individual pursuit and Madison (along with Wright, there's a theme here). A year later, he stepped up a level to win the Madison at senior level, along with Joe Holt. In 2016, he also defended his junior IP title, and was part of the squad that won the team pursuit at the European Junior Championships.

9. Hayter can't swim, which makes it very unlikely that he will ever dabble in triathlons.

10. The 24-year-old also can't drive. Luckily for Hayter, being a professional cyclist, he can just climb aboard the team bus at the end of a race rather than fussing about driving home.

11. The Londoner is a lifelong Arsenal fan, although he would have missed the club's glory days, more or less, being just five when the club went 38 games unbeaten in 2003-4. He shares this trait with his teammate Tao Geoghegan Hart.

12. His go-to pre-race meal is pasta or porridge, depending on when in the day it is, we're guessing.

13. Hayter's first World Championship title came in 2018, when he was part of the team pursuit squad which won gold in Apeldoorn, The Netherlands. He repeated this in 2022, winning gold in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines.

14. He has two solo titles at World Championship level, winning the omnium in 2021 and 2022. In the latter, he beat fellow road cyclists Benjamin Thomas (France/Cofidis) and Aaron Gate (New Zealand/Bolton Equities Black Spoke). He was also European champion in 2018, in the same discipline.

15. On the road, his first big win came in the under-23 road race at the British National Championships in 2019. That same year, he won stages at the Baby Giro d'Italia and the Tour de l'Avenir, the two key development races.

16. Hayter has broken his collarbone three times while racing, at l'Avenir in 2019, and then at the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race and Critérium du Dauphiné in 2023.

17. He has lived with various track and road professionals over the years, including Fred Wright and Matt Walls.

18. In 2022, he flew his parents out for the road World Championships in Wollongong, Australia, which meant they could watch his brother Leo finish on the podium in the under-23 time trial.

19. He has only raced one Grand Tour, the 2022 Vuelta a España, at which he spent time in the white jersey for best young rider. Sadly, however, he tested positive for Covid after stage nine and was sent home.

20. Before he seriously got into cycling, Hayter spent time practising Taekwondo. We hope none of these moves are ever needed in the bunch.

21. In his spare time, the 24-year-old enjoys playing on his PlayStation and putting Ikea furniture together. And he's left-handed. Sinister.

Remco Evenepoel is just 26 but has already won two Monuments, a Grand Tour, and the World Championships and Olympic road races, so you can understand why there's so much hype around the Belgian.

The northern European country has been waiting for a Grand Tour winner for so long that there was pandemonium after his Vuelta a España triumph in 2022, especially as it was followed by victory at the World Championships weeks later.

His 2025 started slowly after he was injured in the off-season - more on that below - but he has won eight times, with time trial victories at the Tour de France, World Championships, and European Championships.

He moved to Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe for 2026, after a lengthy transfer saga, and has won eight times for them already. Here are 21 things to know.

1. Remco Evenepoel's father, Patrick, was briefly a professional cyclist in the early 1990s, winning the Grand Prix de Wallonie in 1993. He went on to be a plasterer, while his mother is a hair stylist

2. He was once captain of RSC Anderlecht and the Belgian national football team at age-group levels, before dropping out of football and turning professional in cycling. He played at left back and in central midfield

3. He ran a half marathon in 1-16.15 aged 16, finishing 13th at the Brussels Half Marathon in 2016

4. Evenepoel only started cycling full-time aged 17, joining the Forte Young junior team and then Acrog-Pauwels-Sauzen-Balen BC club before switching to Quick-Step as he crossed into senior racing

5. In 2018, his last junior year, he racked up mind-boggling 23 victories in 27 race days. The Belgian was the first ever rider to win the World Championship road race and time trial in the same year at junior level

6. He was so young when he joined what was then Deceuninck-Quick Step that he was the first WorldTour rider to be born in the 21st Century

7. Remco fractured his pelvis and suffered a contusion to his right lung after crashing over the side of a small bridge and falling into a ravine at Il Lombardia in 2020

8. Early in his time with Quick-Step the idea of sending him to race with the Belgian under-23 cycling team was floated, because of his lack of experience riding in a bunch

9. For a man from Flanders, he doesn't like cobbles, and once ducked out of the Flanders sportive because he didn't enjoy it. He told ProCycling magazine in 2019: "“The cobbles don’t suit me. I mean, the other week, I went for a ride near home. There was a Tour of Flanders sportive going on, and the course was marked out, so I started following the arrows, but after the first sector of cobbles, I just turned for home. I couldn’t do any more. And the rain was too heavy as well.”

10. Evenepoel is the face of Pizza Hut in Belgium, having done multiple adverts for the American pizza chain - not that he eats in that often

11. His wife, Oumi Rayane, revealed via her Instagram that Remco plans his menu out on a kitchen whiteboard. It included tacos, sweet potato fries, omelette, and risotto

12. He was the first Belgian winner of a Grand Tour in 44 years when he pulled on the red jersey at the Vuelta a España last summer. He was also the first rider in the 21st century to win Liège-Bastogne-Liège in two consecutive years

13. He doesn't post publicly on Strava anymore, after working out that it was a way that his rivals can work out how good his form is. That doesn't prevent him from occasionally popping up and claiming a few KOMs, however, or posting races

14. Remco, along with Oumi Rayane, is an ambassador for Safety Jogger shoes, one of Soudal Quick-Step's sponsors

15. When he was 19, Evenepoel stated his ambitions as winning the three Grand Tours, the World Championships and and an Olympic title. He has already done two of these, with the 2022 Vuelta and Worlds

16. Evenepoel was the first ever man to win both events at the Olympics, and also the first ever person to win the Olympic and world TT titles in the same year. Not bad.

17. Remco received a call from the King of the Belgians, Philippe, after his victory at the Vuelta - it appears that the Belgian royalty knows who is the real star

18. He is still a football fan, appearing last year on the pitch at his former club, Anderlecht, and is friends with Belgium and Real Madrid goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois

19. Ineos Grenadiers were reportedly interested in signing him after his incredible 2022, with team boss Dave Brailsford texting Quick-Step boss Patrick Lefevere to tell him if he ever wanted to sell the prolific Belgian, he should get in touch. However, Evenepoel has a contract with Quick-Step until 2026

20. He might just be 25, but a statue of the Belgian already exists, on Mount Fóia in Portugal, marking his victory at the 2020 Tour of the Algarve

21. He was injured in late 2024 after he was struck with the door of a Belgian post van by its driver. The moment was later used to encourage drivers to use the 'Dutch reach' when opening their doors to make sure cyclists are seen.

Ethan Vernon continued Soudal Quick-Step’s refreshed run of form at the Tour de Romandie, sprinting emphatically to a stage win on the race’s second day.

The Brit’s victory made it two for two for the Belgian team at the race, coming just 24 hours after his team-mate Josef Černý prevailed in the prologue, a 6.8km individual time trial in the Swiss town of Port-Valais. 

The win also marked the 22-year-old’s second at WorldTour level, his first claimed at the Volta a Catalunya over a year ago. 

“To win again in WorldTour is nice,” he said post-race in Vallée de Joux. “Especially for me, I had three wins at the start of the year, and then I had a bit of sickness after one of my races. So to come back to good fitness and form now is nice.” 

After a comparatively dry Classics season for Soudal Quick-Step, who went almost a month winless between March and April, Vernon’s victory continued an uptick in form for the team. The squad have now won the last three races they started, including Remco Evenepoel’s breakaway triumph at Liège-Bastogne-Liège on Sunday. 

“We’re back to winning ways again,” Vernon said, referring to his team’s newfound form. 

The Brit, a world champion in the team pursuit on the track, now leads the Tour de Romandie ahead of Thursday's stage two, tied on time with his team-mate Černý.

Asked what it means to wear the yellow leader’s jersey, he said: “It’s really special. I obviously take it off my team-mate, so we keep it in the team for another day and we keep trying for the GC with the team.

“I’m not sure [if I can keep the jersey]. Tomorrow is hard, but anything is possible. I had good legs today, so we’ll see what the legs are like tomorrow. If not me, we have other cards we can play in the team.” 

Stage two brings an undulating menu of climbs for the peloton, with three category-two ascents and two classified at category three. Starting in Morteau and finishing in La Chaux-de-Fonds, it takes place mostly in the Jura mountains. 

The six-day WorldTour race will conclude this Sunday 30 April in Geneva.

Belgian cycling legend Philippe Gilbert has praised Soudal Quick-Step’s Kasper Asgreen ahead of this Sunday’s Paris-Roubaix, and believes he can continue to build on his form at the ‘Hell of the North’.

Speaking to Cycling Weekly, Gilbert- a former winner of both the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix - explained that he was impressed by Asgreen’s Ronde van Vlaanderen performance, and believes it’s a good sign ahead of the final cobbled Monument of the Spring.

“Asgreen had a great race, of course,” Gilbert said. “After the huge crash happened because of the Bahrain rider, the race was finished for Lampaert and Alaphilippe. They were caught in the crash and suffered from it, and they never recovered.”

Coming into the Tour of Flanders, Soudal Quick-Step had struggled for form throughout the current Classics campaign.

In a press conference before ‘De Ronde’, Patrick Lefevere, the team’s general manager, called for the likes of Julian Alaphilippe, Kasper Asgreen and their teammates to “save the team’s honour”.

After spending much of the day in the breakaway before ultimately finishing seventh, Asgreen put in a solid performance which would have eased some of the pain amongst the camp after the team failed to make much of an impact this Spring on what was once their playground.  

“I talked to him [Asgreen] after the finish,” Gilbert added. “After the crash, all the pressure was on him. It was great that he could still manage to get away with the group that he did, and get his chance to be in the position to win.”

“I know that when you get deep in the final of either race, your legs are speaking more than anything else.”  

Meanwhile, Jumbo-Visma’s Wout van Aert will be able to call upon the support of last year’s Roubaix winner Dylan van Baarle on Sunday.

Having another strong teammate to rely upon will be welcome dby Van Aert, after he slipped out of contention during Flanders after the Kruisberg climb.

Gilbert explained that despite Jumbo-Visma’s dominance this Spring, he feels that Van Aert is racing more conservatively compared to his 2022 Spring campaign. On Opening Weekend last year, Van Aert began his season with a scintillating Omloop Het Nieuwsblad win.

“He’s there, and he still wins like at E3, and is having a great season,” Gilbert said. “But I don’t think he’s the Van Aert that we’re used to seeing. Like when he won last year at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, he dropped everyone else, and was taking time on ten guys behind him. He was just gaining more time during every kilometre.”

“Now you can see that he’s counting his efforts a bit more, and things like that.”
Watch Legend: Philippe Gilbert on GCN+ via the GCN+ App, Smart TV or any web browser. Philippe will be providing in-race analysis from the back of a motorbike throughout Eurosport GCN coverage of the Grand Tours, available live and on demand (territory restrictions apply). 

Soudal Quick-Step, led by Remco Evenepoel, triumphed in stage two’s team time trial at the UAE Tour, beating EF Education-EasyPost by a single second. 

The road world champion started and finished his team’s effort on the 17.3km course through Abu Dhabi’s Khalifa Port, averaging 56.773km/h to set a time of 18-17. 

As a result, Evenepoel is now tied for the race lead with Ineos Grenadiers’ Luke Plapp, who holds the red leader’s jersey having placed better on Monday's opening stage.  

Speaking after the race, the Belgian said: “We didn’t expect to go under the time of EF. We were mainly focused on the other GC guys, Plapp and [Pello] Bilbao, to do better than them.”

“To be able to win this stage is very incredible I think we executed our plan perfectly. We wanted to stay all together until we got out of the headwind, and then some guys really took our all their energy to do one last pull. 

He continued: “To win it with one second is pretty crazy. I think it’s my first ever TTT victory and to do it in this race, back-to-back victories for our team, it’s a perfect start.” 

The course for the team time trial was drawn out on wide, straight roads, save for two sharp u-turns. Race banners flapped in the breeze, but the wind was less troublesome than the first stage, where it tore the peloton into echelons. 

Having lost 53 seconds to Evenepoel in the crosswinds the day before, Adam Yates and his UAE Team Emirates team-mates rolled down the start ramp with intent, setting an early best time of 18-33.

Soon though, the home team began to tumble down the standings. EF Education-EasyPost earned their place in the hot seat with a blistering ride, and couldn’t be toppled, despite Ineos Grenadiers’ best efforts falling two seconds short.

As the final few teams navigated through the port’s stacks of shipping containers, it looked like the American team might go unbeaten. Soudal Quick-Step clocked in 10 seconds down at the time check, and Bahrain Victorious, one of the pre-race favourites for the stage win, could only muster 8-21. 

Then, as the Belgian team went under the flamme rouge, red jersey wearer Tim Merlier peeled off the front, unleashing Evenepoel to come through for a final turn. The former junior world time trial champion pulled hard, as he had done in the crosswinds on stage one, and towed his team-mates to the line to win by just one second.

The victory marked Soudal Quick-Step's second marginal win of the race, after Merlier was awarded the first stage in a tight photo finish. 

The peloton will now face the first of two climbing tests on Wednesday, with a summit finish scheduled atop the 20km-long Jebel Jais. 

Results

UAE Tour 2023, stage two: Khalifa Port team time trial (17.3km)

1. Soudal Quick-Step, in 18-17
2. EF Education-EasyPost, at 1s
3. Ineos Grenadiers, at 3s
4. Bahrain Victorious, at 4s
5. Jayco AlUla, at 5s
6. Team DSM, at 10s
7. Bora-Hansgrohe, at 15s
8. UAE Team Emirates, at 16s
9. Astana Qazaqstan, at 17s
10. Trek-Segafredo, at 19s

General classification after stage two

1. Luke Plapp (Aus) Ineos Grenadiers, in 3-35-50
2. Remco Evenepoel (Bel) Soudal Quick-Step, at same time
3. Nikias Arndt (Ger) Bahrain Victorious, at 3s
4. Pello Bilbao (Esp) Bahrain Victorious, at 4s
5. Mark Cavendish (GBr) Astana Qazaqstan, at 15s
6. Cees Bol (Ned) Astana Qazaqstan, at 21s
7. Olav Kooij (Ned) Jumbo-Visma, at 23s
8. Bert van Lerberghe (Bel) Soudal Quick-Step, at 29s
9. Tim Merlier (Bel) Soudal Quick-Step, at 30s
10. Jarrad Drizners (Aus) Lotto Dstny, at 50s

Professional bike riders are used to travelling across the world for bike races, with programmes changing often on the whim of a sports director, or because of the vagaries of the track calendar.

However, there can't be many bigger gear shifts than the one Soudal Quick-Step's Ethan Vernon has experienced in the past week, moving from the confines of the Tissot Velodrome in Grenchen, where he was part of the GB squad at the European Track Championships, to racing the Tour du Rwanda in the heat and manic atmosphere of the east African country.

It does not seem to have affected the 22-year-old from Bedford too negatively, however; less than a fortnight on from claiming silver along with the GB team pursuit squad in Switzerland, he won in Rwamagana on Sunday, claiming the lead in the Tour du Rwanda in the process, and then doubled up on Monday in Gisagara.

Vernon described the switch from the track to the roads of east Africa to Cycling Weekly on Monday morning, in Kigali, as "difficult", possibly an understatement. 

"I had a track couple of weeks, a few days at home doing some endurance, and then I came here, so we will see how I am later in the week," he said. "Yesterday I felt OK, but this is why a race like this is good, to get the legs back heading towards the bigger races and the Classics."

It is not actually the full fat Soudal Quick-Step team that Vernon is in Rwanda with. Instead, he is with the new Soudal Quick-Step Development squad, which capped off its opening race on Sunday with a win thanks to their elite rider on loan.

"The advantage of having a development team is that you can choose your programme," Vernon explained. "With my track ambitions, the UAE Tour and the Volta ao Algarve didn't work, so here was a nice race to come to. Eight-day stage race in the altitude and the heat is good early season preparation.

"This was the first race for the team, and for three of the guys it was their first professional race at all. They worked really hard for me yesterday, worked on their own from the start, with no help from the bigger teams, young guys doing it on their own, it's good."

The opening stage of the Tour du Rwanda also marked Vernon's second win of the year, after he won the Trofeo Palma at the Challenge Mallorca last month. It might not be the deepest field, but for a sprinter in his second year, any victory is valuable.

"A win's a win, isn't it. For these guys, it's most of their first professional races, so for them to start with a win, and being guided through the final is a really invaluable experience really.

"It's also my contract year, so it's nice to start off like this. I said I wanted to win more races than last year, and we're halfway there already."

In 2022, Vernon won two stages at the Tour of Slovakia, and a stage of the Volta a Catalunya. If he wants to remain at the highest level, keep benefiting from the Quick-Step super train, he needs to deliver on his undoubted promise more regularly. With Tim Merlier and Fabio Jakobsen the senior sprinters at the Belgian team, he is learning to take his opportunities when they come.

One only needs to look at the way sprinters are regularly farmed off to other squads from Quick-Step - Mark Cavendish the latest - to see how there is no room for complacency at the super squad.

The Tour du Rwanda also produces a fresh setting, a race where he is undoubtedly the strongest sprinter in the field. He might have an inexperienced team, but all eyes are on him.

"It's a chance to win in a different scenario," Vernon said. "There's not often times where you're the real favourite, you have to control the race and all the pressures on you. The other races I've done there have been other top sprinters there, and people are looking at them rather than me. 

"It's a different learning experience. It's the training aspect as well, to come here and be in better shape."

Also present in Rwanda with the new development team is its boss, Patrick Lefevere. As well as being here for the squad, he is here scouting for new talent, and seeking an African perspective.

"I have been asked by friends here for several years to come over," the Belgian told Cycling Weekly. "I heard Rwanda is a very clean and safe country, and also the World Championships are here in 2025, so I wanted to come here with my young team, to see if we could win something."

"We were following [Biniam] Girmay [the Eritrean cyclist] for several years," Lefevere continued, when asked about talent scouting. "But he was binded to a French team, and then he didn't want to come to us, because he was afraid of not having his chance in the Classics, and he was right."

Rwanda is a new experience for many of the riders involved in the race, with crowds for a race of this size unheard of anywhere else.

"It's incredible, yesterday the finish straight was so good," Vernon said. "I've heard next weekend's going to be amazing.

"Even yesterday, I gave the flowers to the hotel staff and they were so thankful, it meant the world to them. They were almost crying, and it has been a great experience so far."

He will be hoping to keep collecting flowers this week.