Jan Bakelants' evaluation of the Opening Weekend - "Visma | Lease a Bike was not as collectively dominant as in previous years"

The Opening Weekend has brought forward many riders, but mostly the sprinters. When it comes to the main riders who will battle for the cobbled monuments, little conclusions could be taken out of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Kuurne - Bruxelles - Kuurne. Former pro Jan Bakelants kept his eye out for those who took the spotlight, and also those who failed to do so.

"The Flemish opening weekend gave birth to a mouse. In terms of tension, I thought it was weak," Bakelants said in his Het Laate Nieuws column. "The excellent weather conditions were partly responsible for that, but nothing more than that. There was very little consistency in many teams".

Team Visma | Lease a Bike and UAE Team Emirates - XRG tried in both races to attack and not take things to a sprint, but failed to succeed in this mission. Lidl-Trek's non-selection of Milan and Pedersen for Omloop looked to be an eroor; BORA's sacrifice of Jordi Meeus at Omloop and then crashes for Jan Tratnik made it a bad weekend; Whilst Soudal - Quick-Step wasn't in on the action much as well.

The spotlight was taken by Soren Waerenskjold and a surprising Uno-X Mobility at Omloop, whilst Alpecin-Deceuninck did a textbook leadout to take their first win of the season with Jasper Philipsen in Kuurne. The climbs over the weekend proved to not be very selective for a peloton this fast.

"Visma | Lease a Bike was not as collectively dominant as in previous years. It did miss the sick Christophe Laporte and the much-plagued Dylan Van Baarle. But I was also not impressed by the rest of their classic core," he adds. Wout van Aert looked to struggle with positioning in some moments and that made it harder for the team to make the difference.

But Tadej Pogacar's UAE also did not impress despite the very strong lineups they started the weekend with. "Estimated to be very strong in advance, but it didn't show up in the piece on Saturday. On Sunday, Jhonatan Narváez and especially Tim Wellens made a few brave attempts. But in his overall nature we still got to see too little".