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"We always bring a team built around the sprints" - Michael Morkov
CyclingSunday, 03 July 2022 at 08:30
Michael Morkov is widely regarded as one of the - if not the - best leadout men in the current peloton, and he has talked about it at the Tour de France where he is once again with the key role of helping the team's sprinter to capture victories.
“All sprinters know this is probably one of the teams where you have the biggest possibility to win races, including at the Tour. To win sprints, you need one of the best sprinters, obviously, but sprinting is also kind of in this team’s DNA, along with being dominant in the Spring Classics," Morkov told Cyclingnews. He's part of a strong leadout from Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl Team, which sees different pieces throughout the year but has him as a key figure.
“The roster always includes good lead-out men, good riders to control the breakaway. We always bring a team built around the sprints," he says. At the Tour he's having Florian Sénéchal, Yves Lampaert and Kasper Asgreen as the men in front of him, however throughout the year he finds other blocks to work with. However the experienced Dane is one of the best at what he does and is often a vital man in most of the team's sprint wins.
“Of course, I’m really flattered about it, and I’m just really honoured that two sprinters as good as that are asking me for their help,” Mørkøv said, as he also helped Mark Cavendish to the win at the Giro this year - and has had many other successful sprinters on his wheel in the past year. “It’s a similar situation to what we had in the past with the team, because we always had several great sprinters. In the past, it was Viviani and Jakobsen, and Hodeg and Sam Bennett. I always rode a bit with them all and I succeeded in winning with them all too.”
This record has made him an indispensable piece for the Belgian team. “I believe that I can always find a way to make a sprint go in our favour, so I try to analyse the situation in every sprint and see what is demanded of me. Sometimes, it’s important to lead out my sprinter in the last 200m," Morkov explained. In many situation he's capable of thriving, a race reading skill that can't be learned in books but rather by spending years in the role.
“But other times, it’s different, like with Cavendish’s first stage win last year, when I just placed him in the last k and then he did it on his own. It’s important to understand the difference between sprints," the veteran told. In the opening sprint of the Tour, Jakobsen rode to another win in the sprints.
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