If we’re completely honest with ourselves, it’s hard to draw compelling conclusions from Opening Weekend given both (men’s) races culminated in a bunch sprint. But maybe that’s a good thing. There have been no massive blow-ups, no unmitigated disasters and, mercifully, no season-defining crashes. Not yet. And that means the Spring Classics remain fairly open.
That said, there are a few key takeaways from this first weekend in northern Europe, the first visit to the cobbles and climbs of Flanders – besides the massive lesson learned by much of the women's WorldTour peloton on Saturday, when the breakaway went all the way at Omloop Nieuwsblad.
In short, for the men, it was a good weekend to be a sprinter.
Podium results:
- Omloop Nieuwsblad (1 March): 1st Søren Wærenskjold, 2nd Paul Magnier, and 3rd Jasper Philipsen
- Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne (2 March): 1st Jasper Philipsen, 2nd Olav Kooij, and 3rd Hugo Hofstetter
"Ahem, nope. Back in your place, pal(s). This is a sprinter's classic."
Philipsen threw himself a birthday party
Most would be delighted to only wait nine race days for their first victory of the season, but Jasper Philipsen’s drought in the desert – two podiums but no wins at the UAE Tour – had some asking the Milan-San Remo and nine-time Tour de France stage winner if he’d sacrificed his sprint in favour of a one-day focus.
The Belgian himself quipped that perhaps he’d forgotten how to sprint, but in actual fact, his 2025 season has yielded arguably his best starting results in years, maybe ever. Ultimately, what’s more valuable? Pure sprint results at the *snore* UAE Tour, or a winning Opening Weekend? And on your birthday, no less?
It would be generous to call Philipsen’s opening classics record before 2025 anything more than mediocre – even that is an over-statement, although that would perhaps only really matter if they’d all ended in the same way. But just because Philipsen is often disguised as a ‘pure sprinter’, that doesn’t mean he’d have been out of the picture had a smaller group made it all the way at Omloop or Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne. In fact, he made sure he’d be in the spotlight, and was still there for the gallop home.
Philipsen was on the move between the last couple of climbs.
With a third-place and victory in the first two races, Philipsen and Alpecin-Deceuninck have made themselves the centre of attention as the Cobbled Classics begin, and that’s before Mathieu van der Poel has so much as shown his face…
Visma-Lease a Bike struggle to make anything stick
After last season’s disastrous luck and Wout van Aert’s lengthy injury layoff, the once-top Classics powerhouse came into this weekend with optimism but tempered expectations. And at the close of Sunday’s Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, Visma-Lease a Bike may well be disappointed, but it’s not all doom and gloom.
The Dutch squad started Saturday’s Omloop Nieuwsblad as the thrice reigning champions, albeit without the past two winners in late-attacker Jan Tratnik, now wearing a Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe jersey, and Dylan van Baarle, whose bad luck extended its own reign at the Tour Down Under where he broke his collarbone on stage 1 – Van Baarle did though make a quiet return to racing at this Sunday’s Faun-Drome Classic, with Tirreno-Adriatico next on his programme.
Matteo Jorgenson looked pretty damn great on the Kapelmuur alongside the bobble-headed Van Aert (in the shiny aero helmet).
2022 champ Wout van Aert was present alongside Matteo Jorgenson, a unique co-leadership at the head of a decent squad including Tiesj Benoot and Victor Campenaerts, but the weekend didn’t start off as planned.
“We didn’t ride the race we had envisioned,” DS Grischa Niermann said in post-Omloop statement through the team website. “Our plan was to make the race hard and to put the others under pressure. We have to accept that we weren’t strong enough for that today.”
Despite the Belgian’s struggles earlier in Omloop when he was out of position – “I didn’t have the best legs.” – Van Aert and Jorgenson were where they needed to be when it mattered over the Kapelmuur, but with so many teams and riders still in contention for a final sprint, it wasn’t in the cards for them on Saturday.
Van Aert seemed to turn up with better legs to Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, but with even lower expectations given the sprinter-friendly parcours and teammate Olav Kooij in the bunch, it mattered less that he had power on his side, even with the number 1 of reigning champ on his back.
Perhaps if he’d been able to go sooner and drawn out a few other puncheurs … Alas, there were too many hitters behind him, and Roger Adría was an anchor on his wheel.
Visma-Lease a Bike did what they had to, sending Van Aert up the road and holding up the bunch behind him, but with no one but Roger Adrià alongside the Belgian (now in a good old-fashioned vented helmet), and the Spaniard working a team role so never pulling through, the attack was over almost before it had begun.
While Kooij is an obvious headliner with a runner-up result at Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, having stayed almost completely invisible all day long, Matteo Jorgenson has – once again – shown himself to be a huge threat. But is the reigning Dwars Door Vlaanderen champ being given the agency he deserves?
Mixed results for Lidl-Trek and Soudal-QuickStep
Two teams with differing standings in the Classics hierarchy are Lidl-Trek and Soudal-QuickStep, who after 2024, might be said to have swapped places in the one-day standings – Lidl-Trek on the up as the old Belgian super-team sagged.
Last spring marked an extraordinary step-up for the American squad, with Toms Skujiņš and Jonathan Milan joining Mads Pedersen and Jasper Stuyven as worthy leaders, bolstered by the unparalleled Tim Declercq to grind down a breakaway’s advantage and rival teams’ resolve. And this weekend, we saw a coming-of-age of sorts for Mathias Vacek, although frankly that’s doing the 22-year-old Czech rider a disservice.
Vacek had already made a name for himself way back in 2022 when he won an aggressive UAE Tour stage from the breakaway, but he was propelled into the public consciousness in the opening week of last year’s Vuelta a España – 2nd in the opening TT and in the stage 7 sprint behind Van Aert. He’s a large chap at over six foot tall, but he can clearly climb as well as crush it on flat terrain, as demonstrated at the Figuiera Classic in mid-February and on the Kapelmuur at Omloop Nieuwsblad where he never left the front having led the bunch into the foot of the climb.
Vacek sat on the front and stayed on the front for the duration of the infamous wall.
It didn't quite work out on Sunday's Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne where sprinter Jonathan Milan sprinted to sixth, but there was no shortage of oomph from the team throughout the race.
As for Soudal-QuickStep, the once-unstoppable classics squad came into Opening Weekend with most of the pressure on the shoulders of a 20-year-old Frenchman, with Yves Lampaert also there as road captain and Mr Opportunist.
Paul Magnier has never raced Opening Weekend before. He’s actually only raced two spring classics ever at last year’s Bredene Koksijde (11th) and Dwars Door Vlaanderen (39th), but after a sturdy start to 2025 with three race days and three podiums, he earned top billing should Omloop Nieuwsblad end in a sprint. Which it did. And the young rider confidently weathered the earlier drama to nab second in the bunch gallop – a result that seemed to hurt as he crossed the line with a howl.
“The team encouraged me the whole day and protected me the entire time, making sure I was in a good position going into all the important climbs, while I tried to save as much energy as possible,” Magnier said in team quotes. “It was a nervous race, but we did a good job and we can be proud of this.
“Second place is a bit frustrating, especially as I was so close, but at the end of the day, it’s a podium in my first cobbled Classic, so at the same time, I am happy with this result after a hard race and an equally hard sprint in the headwind. It’s a good result for us and for our confidence to kick off the Classics.”
The team took their confidence into Kuurne, swapping Magnier for Tim Merlier, but, like Lidl-Trek – only worse – the result was anti-climactic with the European champion only managing 15th.
Hollow heroism at UAE Team Emirates-XRG
The pedigree and physiology of the likes of Nils Politt, Tim Wellens and Mikkel Bjerg are nothing new to cobbled classics such as these, but yet again, Jhonatan Narváez has bucked the trend of northern European one-day supremacy and emerged as a true challenger even on terrain where an extra 15-20 cm and >10kg would usually serve a contender.
The freshly minted Ecuadorian national champion started the season with an ever-so consistent Tour Down Under, collecting a full quota of podium steps on his way to overall victory, then a visit home to ensure no changes to his wardrobe would be necessary before returning to the happy hunting ground of Belgium.
Neither of the former Ineos rider's Opening Weekend appearances came to much, though, despite the best efforts of himself and a particularly enthusiastic Wellens. The Belgian bridged up to the ill-fated break late in Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, but it was too little too late. Meanwhile, Portuguese puncheur António Morgado was unable to show any of his early-season promise, though he was the team's top finisher at Omloop in 42nd...
Young whippersnappers offer glimmers of hope for Ineos Grenadiers
Ineos Grenadiers netting a top-five finish at Omloop Nieuwsblad – no Kuurne for the Grenadiers – should probably go down as a huge win for the British team who brought a rather young and inexperienced squad to the opening classic. Bob Jungels and Connor Swift were the elder statesmen in a team that included three debutants, but in new signing Sam Watson, they evidently have a promising rider for the spring.
That’s alongside Ben Turner who we’ve already seen prove himself on the cobbles and bergs, as well as Josh Tarling who took himself a break from the peloton on Saturday after going on the attack about 50 km from the finish. His acceleration only really amounted to 20 km in purgatory, but a better timed move by the generational time-trial talent could be a real threat in the northern classics.
A big – let’s say, Monumental – win may be a way off yet, but don’t be surprised if one or two Ineos jerseys find their way onto the podium of a more minor classic this spring. The pressure’s on from up above, so the time is most certainly now for the Grenadiers.
Sleeper hits
While there were also strong performances from UAE Team Emirates-XRG and the likes of Stefan Küng, arguably the most compelling storylines from Opening Weekend come from the lower ranks, that is, the ProTeams. Sure, Uno-X Mobility performing at the top tier is not at all surprising, but Søren Wærenskjold’s victory at Omloop Nieuwsblad is notable nonetheless.
What’s more intriguing still is the sudden emergence of Unibet Tietema Rockets’ Lukáš Kubiš, an early contender for revelation of the spring, with teammate Tomáš Kopecký also getting his name out there in Sunday's breakaway.
Slovakian national champion Kubiš – technically the first post-Sagan champ given Peter raced to second in 2023 – signed with Bas Tietema’s ambitious now-French outfit over the winter, and has made an almost instant impression. Kubiš had a super strong Tour de la Provence, which proved a one-day specialist’s paradise as demonstrated by overall winner Mads Pedersen, and brought that form with him to Belgium.
He’s already proven himself a nifty sprinter this season, finishing hot on the heels of Sam Bennett (Decathlon-AG2R) twice in Provence, so the fact he made it into the top 10 of both Omloop Nieuwsblad and Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne is not that surprising. But what’s particularly notable is that the 25-year-old appears to have an instinct for positioning himself in the notoriously challenging Cobbled Classics which he’s never raced before – the commentators quickly got themselves used to saying his name in the latter stages of Omloop Nieuwsblad on Saturday.
A few words for Q36.5 and Lotto before we close: Tom Pidcock was content after Omloop, offering a pragmatic assessment of his positioning going into the crucial final bergs, which ultimately didn’t matter much given he couldn’t expect to challenge in a bunch sprint. Next stop Strade Bianche for the rejuvenated Q36.5 man. As for Lotto, Arnaud De Lie was among the top favourites on Saturday, but was sent out the back by an “a bloc” chase earlier in the race. The Belgian ProTeam still managed a top-4 finish thanks to the smart positioning and powerful sprint of Brent van Moer, whose 90 points won’t do the team any harm in the quest for promotion.
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