'Everybody has been waiting all winter for Omloop' - EF Education's Charly Wegelius analyses the Opening Weekend

"We're moving in the right kind of direction," EF Education-EasyPost general manager Charly Wegelius is understandably cautiously, when asked about his team's options for success in Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne. 

That's mainly because the collective label – Opening Weekend – really does say it all but the first races in Belgium.

"This weekend is always a bit of an outlier because Omloop and Kuurne are full-on Classics, but there's no kind of context," Wegelius tells Cyclingnews. 

"So it's always a bit of an odd one. If somebody underperforms I don't think it means it'll translate out to what happens around it."

"But there's lots of anticipation because everybody's been waiting all winter for Omloop and I think maybe it can give us the first taste of what's coming."

When it comes to Omloop, only the past success at the Opening Weekend and the performances of the early season races can indicate the out come of the first Belgian races. 

Wegelius warns about the dangers of reading too much into what happened in event such as the Volta ao Algarve but it is impossible to dismiss the January and February races out of hand.

Jan Tratnink is a perfect example. He was third last year in Portugal before winning Omloop.

"You're right when you say they're completely different races," Wegelius argues. 

"But form is form. So if a guy like Tratnik did bring it out in Algarve, he can bring it out in Omloop as well."

Perhaps to combat this widely varying number of scenarios, EF Education-EasyPost are bringing a very eclectic mixture of riders to the races. 

They range from 2018 Omloop winner Michael Valgren to 2020 Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne,  2021 Tour of Flanders and E3 Harelbeke winner Kasper Asgreen, plus Estonian Madis Mihkels, who took tenth in Paris-Roubaix last April aged just 21. 

Also on the provisional EF roster are the hugely experienced Omloop racer Owain Doull and relative newcomers like Italy's Vincenzo Albanese and Denmark's Mikkel Honoré. 

Last but not least is Dutch sprinter Marijn van den Berg, winner for a second time of a one-day race in Mallorca this spring, the Trofeo Ses Salines as well as third overall in the recent Tour de la Provence. He is surely a likely contender for Kuurne, if nothing else.

Long-range ambush?

When it comes to actual scenarios, someone like Valgren will surely not be allowed to make a long-distance attack. 

Yet as Wegelius points out again, Omloop is a Classic like no other given its position in the calendar. Before Saturday nothing really gets ruled out or in.

"I wouldn't see why Michael couldn't do that, to be honest," Wegelius says, about a hypothetical long-range ambush. 

"It's a hard race to figure things out, to plan things ahead, you have to see what the weather's going to be like, what kind of group of riders you're going to send."

"I'd say in general for us, our Classics group's moving along in the right kind of direction and they've done some great work leading out Madis in Algarve this week.

"No-one can do that without some kind of condition. I don't think anybody's quite at their best yet, but it's all looking pretty good to be honest, they're all solid.

"Anything more specific than that you have to work out with the weather, because the weather can be one extreme or another, and how the race pans out on the day."

Rather than making a sophisticated master plan, much of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad hinges on improvisation and reading the race right, which is something true of any Classic but in Opening Weekend it's usually more crucial than ever. 

Looking at history helps and  Wegelius says ponders the form and bigger goals of new signing Asgreen. 

"It's still quite early in his progression and Algarve was his first race this year. If he was at his best form in Flanders without ever doing so well in Nieuwsblad then maybe those two things were connected," Wegelius says.  

Doull, on the other hand, with seven participations and six finishes in Omloop in the last seven years, "is definitely one of the more experienced ones there, and he's also got the skill to place people because he knows the roads as he's done it so many times before. So I think we'll be relying on him for that, once again."

Amidst all the uncertainties and question marks for all the teams regarding Saturday, one general truth for all the squads is who won't be taking part. 

Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) is one key reference point. Neither Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) or Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) will be on the startline on Saturday. How much does that change things?

"I think people race to try and win against them regardless, but I wouldn't be surprised if it has an effect on people's tactics when they are there on a start line," Wegelius suggests. 

"People don't want to blow themselves up trying to follow them. It's kind of psyching out the peloton a little bit."

Another consequence of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad coming so early in the season is that it doesn't just give fans and riders a foretaste of the remainder of the upcoming Classics campaign, it provides some major pointers. 

Yet Wegelius warns that given there's quite a gap between Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne and the next major Belgian Classic, there's a significant margin for change.

"I think there is a risk of reading too much into that race, to be honest, depending on what piece of string you want to pull on, you can go down two roads," he says.

"You can look back after the Classics and say, I knew that guy was going to do well because he did so well in Omloop or you can find a similar but opposite narrative and say he was no good in Opening Weekend, so of course he went on to do well in the later Classics."

"But objectively speaking it is quite a long way from that peak period that only begins at the end of March."

Keeping that kind of perspective isn't just important for the fans and riders, either - it also applies to the teams and what will satisfy them or not. 

Wegelius refuses to give a global target as to what will make him happy on Sunday evening, at least until he's got a better idea on the race conditions themselves.

"It's a bit early, we need to do the recon and see what the weather's like," he points out. 

"Basically it's our first chance to see that group in operation in those conditions and I think that there's reasons for optimism. But we'll take it as it comes."