The Wolfpack celebrated its fourth victory in two days, on two different continents.
Tim Merlier kept the team’s incredible winning streak going at the Tour of Holland, powering to victory on stage one after an immense sprint where he combined positioning, timing and speed. The Belgian, who raced clad in the Soudal Quick-Step jersey for the first time in more than a year now that his spell as European Champion concluded, came past his opponents in the last 150 meters of the day, blasting to the Wolfpack’s 50th victory of the year – the 11th time in the team’s history that we’ve hit this amazing milestone.
The exceptional season Tim has had is underlined also by the fact he won at least a race in all the months of the year – except for May, when he didn’t compete – a remarkable consistency for the soon-to-be 33-year-old and a testament to his determination. In Dordrecht, where Wednesday’s stage finished, Merlier showcased again his phenomenal speed after a flawless job of his teammates and claimed a win that put him in the points jersey, which he’ll wear during the individual time trial.
“I’m delighted I could bring Soudal Quick-Step’s 50th victory of the season! It’s an outstanding performance of the whole squad and it speaks a lot of our ambition and team spirit! We are having a great week, here and in China, and we want to keep the same motivation until Sunday. Today it wasn’t easy, quite hectic actually with all the road furniture, and the sprint was a hard one, but I managed to find the right timing and also had good legs to finish it off.”
“It’s my 16th success of the year, meaning that I have now matched my total number of last year, and this is something that gives me a lot of pride. We have a couple of more stages left here this week and we’ll see what else we can achieve”, said Tim, who became the first Belgian rider since the legendary Freddy Maertens in 1977 to take 16 victories a season in back-to-back years.
Photo credit: ©Cor Vos
