"Exchange Remco for Wout van Aert" - Jan Bakelants believes swap could benefit both Visma and Quick-Step

Soudal - Quick-Step has for it's long history been a team focused in the cobbled classics, but in recent years it has been virtually wiped out from the map. Jan Bakelants, who has been in the Belgian team in the past, believe the team would benefit from letting go Remco Evenepoel in exchange for Wout van Aert.

"Yes, I'm having a bit of a hard time with that. I don't think you can deny your DNA," Bakelants said regarding Quick-Step's ambitions in the cobbled classics. "I don't think you can do it to everyone sitting here in the room, to us, not to put a classic team on paper anymore." The team has had legends in it's squad and even recent victor of big cobbled monuments such as Niki Terpstra and Kasper Asgreen, but in the past three cobbled classics campaign it became a team that rarely even contest for the podium - partly due to departures and retirements, partly because it's leaders do not find their best form.

On the other hand, the team has invested a lot of what it had available to try and improve in the stage-racing field as they've developed Remco Evenepoel into a leading figure in cycling, who can thrive in the hilly one-day races but has Grand Tour ambitions. There were talks of Evenepoel moving to Team Visma | Lease a Bike last winter, specially when the rumours of the two teams emerged, but ultimately that didn't come to be. His contract with the Belgian team was far from secure however.

Bakelants believes Evenepoel would be benefited by joining Visma as he'd have superior support in his Grand Tour ambitions, whilst Visma would gain another superstar. In return, Wout van Aert could be swapped, giving Quick-Step once again a major weapon to fight for victories in the cobbled classics, and a leader which the team can base itself on to grow back into a superstrength in the spring classics.

"If they want to return to the Flemish spring, I think they should find a workable solution with Remco and release him. That he can go to where he can better pursue his dreams. Then they have to use the money that becomes available to get someone who can score again in the spring. That is the only workable solution," Bakelants argues, although it is questionable if the team would ever desire to go down that path. "They can try to make a deal. They can exchange Remco for Wout van Aert," he chuckles. 

In that scenario however you would argue what would Wout van Aert have to gain, as he would move onto a team where he'd have a widely inferior cobbled classics block to support him, and he wouldn't really gain much in terms of leadership as he already finds it in Visma.