Jan Hirt, who also won the stage race around Oman this year, could choose from several offers. As he himself confirmed to Seznam Zprávám, he did not take the most lucrative one, but the one that made the most sense to him. Here from the Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl stable and signed for two years.
What must have lured the best Czech road cyclist today, if it wasn’t money? A great pedaling, highly organized team that calls itself the “Wolf Pack”. It’s an open secret. Even Zdeněk Štybar, a long-time and successful member of Quick-Step (he is leaving the stable this year), emphasizes that the team is excellently secured. From the training process through rehabilitation, lifestyle and diet program, stress testing…
And that’s not all. Although there are some great individuals, there is an excellent atmosphere in the stable among the competitors, a friendly spirit. “When a veteran like Štybar says that, it means something. It suits me all the more that Hirt wasn’t just aiming for money,” points out well-known Czech sports doctor and cycling coach Karel Martinek, who knows the Czech cyclist well, trained him before and now continues to work with him.
The fact that most of the competitors who came to the stable increased their performance also speaks in favor of Quick-Step. And virtually everyone who left went down with the results. Whether it was Bob Jungels, Nicky Terpstra, or many others.
The Belgian stable, led by the distinctive personality of Patrick Lefever, is known to use even the highest quality permitted support means. Riders have excellent training, quality trainers available. And this is not an obvious thing. “Today, it is not easy to find a quality expert in a specific sport. There are probably plenty of top physiotherapists, but finding people for a given appropriate sport is not easy. Cycling is very specific in this regard,” emphasizes Martinek.
According to him, the methodology can be excellent, but the approaches of individual teams differ. There are stables that buy a competitor and rather suck him out. At the same time, they could work with him longer and get more out of him.
And then there’s the aforementioned “Lefevere” factor. This man may be a despot in some respects, but he is certainly also a great strategist. It was seen this year as well. The team didn’t do very well at the beginning of the year, they had a lot of sick and injured people, covid affected the situation a lot. Nevertheless, Quick-Step mobilized during the season and in the end its riders won two stages of the Tour de France and one stage of the Giro. Remco Evenepoel added victories in two week-long stages – the Volta Algarve and the Tour of Norway, as well as the Liège–Bastogne–Liège and San Sebastian classics. Sprinter Fabio Jacobsen another classic Kuurne–Brussels–Kuurne and a stage on the Tour.
That’s why Quick-Step continues to stay at the forefront of the team rankings.
Summary of this year’s women’s Tour de France
The right stable?
The only question mark could be whether it is the right stable for Hirt, when until now she has mainly concentrated on classics, one-off races, weekly stages and on winning Grand Tours stages. It is true that she has never won the Tour, Giro or Vuelta overall.
Although recently, Quick-Step has already been second once at the Giro (2014 Rigoberto Uran) and at the Vuelta (2018 Enric Mas). The year before last, he was 6th at the Giro and the year before that even 4th (in both cases Joao Almeida).
A new, important factor in the game is now Remco Evenepoel, the great hope of world cycling, the rider with whom Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl will also aim for the overall ranking. Suddenly everything starts to fit together. The Belgian stable must strengthen the line-up of elite mountain domestics with regard to Evenepoel’s future. And that’s why Hirt is coming to the team.
At the age of 31 and with many years of experience, the Czech rider may well fit into the block that will likely support Evenepoel in the years to come. Hirt had an excellent season this year.
First, at the start of the year, he won both the Royal Stage and the overall classification of the Tour of Oman, signaling a return to good form. He left an even stronger mark on the Giro d’Italia when he finished in sixth place in the final classification after an incredibly strong final week in which, among other things, he won the royal stage to Africa. At one point, he even attacked the overall fourth place.
Interview with Jan Hirt about this season
The question will be how far Hirt will be able to ride Grand Tours on himself. There are three during the year and the Czech competitor believes that the Belgian stable will allow him to do it. In the coming season, he is going to compete in the Spanish Vuelta, where he will have another chance to show his mountaineering skills in the high mountains in his old Intermarche Wanty jersey.
By the way, if he is successful in the following period, he will then be able to sign one more, the last contract, where money will be involved.
In addition to Hirt, the Belgian team signed two more successful riders. The 29-year-old Belgian Tim Merlier for three years and the 26-year-old Dane Casper Pedersen for two years.
“We’re really pleased with the deal we’ve made and the fact that we’ve been able to bring in three quality drivers who will strengthen our team for years to come,” commented team boss Patrick Lefevere on the move. “We have Jan Hirt, who brings his mountain skills. He has been strong for a number of years, as we saw at this year’s Giro d’Italia. He has a knack for getting results for himself, but he also works really hard for others. All three drivers are great individual talents, but also great team men, who I think will fit well into the ‘Wolf Pack’ and its philosophy, and we look forward to working together,” concluded the CEO of the Belgian team.
