Was Remco Evenepoel's Dauphiné stage win actually Quickstep's 1,000th victory? It's difficult

Soudal-QuickStep have been hyping up Remco Evenepoel’s potential to say their 1,000th victory throughout the organisation’s existence, and after the time trial world champion powered to the win in Wednesday’s Critérium du Dauphiné time trial, they despatched out a press launch bragging about this being the large one.

“To succeed in 23 years and 1000 victories, on the highest stage is an achievement that we’re vastly pleased with,” Soudal-QuickStep CEO Jurgen Foré mentioned.

“It’s a milestone that’s solely made doable by years of dedication, teamwork, and limitless ardour. Every win tells a narrative in its personal proper, however the ethos of the workforce is that it is by no means been about one particular person.

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“These 1000 victories mix to make a narrative concerning the collective, a workforce standing for one another within the spirit of The Wolfpack. It’s a tribute to each rider, each workers member and all our followers: this achievement belongs to all of you. It’s a tribute to all of the sponsors and companions supporting the workforce, and particularly our predominant companions Soudal, Fast-Step and Specialised: your ongoing dedication and imaginative and prescient have been instrumental in making this occur.”

However was Evenepoel’s victory as we speak actually the workforce’s 1,000th win? It relies on the way you depend.

Cyclingnews’ outcomes companion First Biking has a complete of nicely over 1,000 whereas Procyclingstats.com (PCS) lists solely 998 together with Evenepoel’s win as we speak.

Counting skilled wins is made tougher as a result of the QuickStep organisation has lasted by way of quite a few modifications within the classification of races and the UCI guidelines concerning which groups can compete by which lessons.

PCS do not depend Continental Championships within the workforce tallies and First Biking do, however each depend the World Championships and never the Olympic Video games, although these are additionally raced with nationwide groups.

First Biking’s complete is over-inflated as a result of they compile a extra exhaustive listing of outcomes together with national-level races, criteriums, cyclocross, gravel, monitor biking, newbie races and far-flung under-23 and junior races, however PCS do not.

Even when we exclude the plain not professional races similar to nationwide occasions and criteriums and non-road disciplines, the 2 totals do not match.

The short-lived Hammer collection was technically a workforce race, and PCS give the victories to the workforce as a unit, whereas First Biking offers the phases to particular person riders, so even some riders’ totals – Evenepoel’s – differ between the 2 databases.

There are different components, similar to instances the place riders have been disqualified. For instance, Carlos Barrdedo was stripped of his wins from 2007-2011 however these are nonetheless in First Biking however not PCS.

A few of that is all the way down to automation – for instance, First Biking seem to have utilized victories received by QuickStep trainees earlier than the post-August 1 trainee window.

Different discrepancies are oversights, like nationwide titles received by Laszlo Bodrogi, Petr Vakoc and Marc de Maar which might be lacking from First Biking’s totals.

In brief, calling Evenepoel’s win the workforce’s 1,000th is slightly arbitrary and it relies on the way you depend them, however the workforce has nonetheless been extremely profitable over their 23 seasons to this point.

PCS counts 111 particular person riders profitable races for the workforce over time. First Biking counts 127 – nonetheless lots of winners! And in the event that they wish to give this milestone to Evenepoel, he is deserving of the honour because the second (PCS) or third (FC) most profitable rider within the workforce’s historical past behind Tom Boonen.

“I’m proud every thing went good and that I delivered the workforce’s one thousandth victory,” Evenepoel mentioned. “This win is for Patrick Lefevere, for every thing he has achieved for this squad and achieved over the previous twenty years. It is an excellent milestone and all the Wolfpack nation may be completely satisfied and pleased with it.”