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blog Patrick Lefevere: Top Marks in Early Season Evaluation 27/04/15 - 16:15

I think we can be very happy with the results of my team. We started winning with Mark Cavendish in Argentina and the trend didn't stop. After Argentina we won in Dubai, Qatar, then in Algarve, and we won at Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne, We had a bit of a tactical defeat in Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, but it's good to be beaten to put your feet back on the ground.

Next we had a victory at the Paris-Nice Prologue. The winning continued, as did a string of second places. Of course we would prefer to win, but still we were almost always there in the finale. In Milano - Sanremo there was the crash of Kwiatkowski and Stybar on the downhill of the Poggio. If not for that bad luck we had the chance to win or get on the podium there as well. Gent-Wevelgem, E3 Harelbeke, Flanders and Roubaix, all the Cobbled Classics, as well as the Ardennes Classics we almost never missed the podium or we won. I don't think any other team did the same.

I think the team spirit is quite good. I saw a team that was focused, and if you want to win or be a protagonist, you have to be in the front and there has to be a bit of nervousness. If everyone is too relaxed for sure you won't have results. In the Northern races we didn't have Tom Boonen, who is really the leader of the team. So, it gave the chance for the other guys to have the responsibility and they did very well. We also discovered some young talent, like Yves Lampaert. The other guys like Niki Terpstra and Zdenek Stybar confirmed what we already knew about them. Key podium places in the Cobbled Classics. In the Ardennes Classics we anticipated being the underdog at these races and I think we had the best campaign in the history of the team. The World Champion Kwiatkowski won Amstel Gold Race and Julian Alaphilippe was really the discovery of the season so far. He was 7th in Amstel Gold Race, and then 2nd in La Fleche Wallonne and Liege-Bastogne-Liege at 22-years-old, and his first time at those races.

Considering all these things, I am a happy manager. We are ranked number one in the UCI WorldTour for a reason, and it is because we are the only team who can say we've been there going for the victory in all kinds of situations, from January until the end of April.

Let's keep going on with this tension and winning mood in the future races!

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