Spring Classics
Where to start? Deceuninck's season is just a case of numbering the wins, they come so big that there's almost no wins that really mark their season, but, there were some indeed. They started off winning both races in the opening weekend ruling the cobbles from the start, then Le Samyn and the only race they didn't have a rider on the podium was Gent-Wevelgem. Inbetween wins in E3 and Paris-Roubaix, the wins were not only in big number but in big dispersity with Stybar/Jungels/Senechal/Gilbert taking them also with Jakobsen winning Scheldeprijs, Asgreen/Hodeg/Viviani also took podium places alongside the Belgian classics and of course, Viviani also won the Great Ocean Road Race.
As for the other side of the classics there were some amazing moments for the team, Julian Alaphillipe's brutal form saw him win both Strade Bianche and Milano Sanremo in impressive fashion before moving on to the Ardennes where he took also Flèche Wallone but then cracked in Liège.
Stage-Races
In these success came as much as it did in the classics almost, the season start was filled with wins, Down Under/Provence/UAE/Basque Country/Turkey each with a win in the bag and San Juan/Colombia/Algarve and Tirreno-Adriatico saw the team netting several wins with Julian Alaphillipe taking most, also with Hodeg/Jakobsen/Stybar/Viviani/Gilbert/Jungels all complementing the team's win ratio from the classics. As for overall results James Knox and Remco Evenepoel also were up there showing in their progress.
As from May came three wins in Caligornia out to a start with Asgreen shining in the overall too, Evenepoel won the Tour of Belgium whilst some extra wins came from Norway and Heylen Vastgoed Heistse Pijl, Dauphuné and three more in Suisse and a total of five national titles (six counting Richeze's in April). Some more came in Adriatica Ionica and finally in BinckBank.
Grand Tours
The Grand Tours were really something, I think with each one the team's performances were stronger and stronger, the Giro came as a bit of a disapointment as Elia Viviani was relegated from the only stage win the team had in theory, Bob Jungels didn't manage to fight for the GC and James Knox aswell after a crash in the opening week, but after a disapointing race here the Tour was a totally different subject.
It was Julian Alaphillipe's mega ride, finishing fifth in the Tour luckily after the final two stages were shortened which allowed him to keep himself up there, but what he did for over two weeks was amazing including two stage wins, several days in the yellow jersey and a very impressive display of resilience against the premier stage-racers and having Elia Viviani redeeming himself with an early win.
And in the Vuelta the race was another massive success, James Knox just fell out of the Top10 in the queen stage but had a great race overall that was marked by the team's stage wins as Fabio Jakobsen took the best out of a great leadout, Phillipe Gilbert took a win in Bilbao and then on the brilliant crosswinds stage where the team was absolutely indestructible and Rémi Cavagna also took a brilliant stage win in Toledo.
Season Finale
As for that final classics period it was another stint of uther domination with Evenepoel winning San Sebastian and the European ITT championships, the road race was amazingly won by Elia Viviani who also won RideLondon and Hamburg, Kampioenschap van Vlaanderen and Sparkassen Munsterland Giro, a win in Slovakia and the overall from Lampaert before Enric Mas finished off the season in the best possible fashion as he also won the queen stage and the overall in the final World Tour race of the season in Guangxi. All these were just the wins, there are several other strong results but the amount and quality of the wins is so overwhelming that it overshadows all other results pretty much. Also Evenepoel was on the podium of the ITT Worlds which was an amazing result and perhaps the highlight of the non-wins.
Wins (WT): 68 (34)
Highlight: Alaphillipe's win in Milano Sanremo
Best Performer: Julian Alaphillipe
Biggest Surprise: Remco Evenepoel
Negative Surprise: -
Ranking: 10/10
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