The Italian superteam's key players nearly three decades after cycling's infamous podium sweep
(Image credit: Getty Images)
It is an iconic image from one of cycling’s most evocative races. Three riders from the Mapei-GB team raise their arms in triumph as they roll over the finish line, almost three minutes ahead of their closest rivals. Winner Johan Museeuw smiles and half-turns to his teammates Gianluca Bortolami and Andrea Tafi.
Mapei’s emphatic performance at the 1996 Paris-Roubaix was a stark expression of their Spring Classics dominance during the late 1990s. After firing a 21-man group away soon after the diabolical Arenberg Forest sector, the Italian super-team tamed one of the sport’s toughest and most capricious races with a long-distance, three-man move. “We’ve performed a miracle,” sports director Fabrizio Fabbri said at the finish.
The result was not quite as harmonious as the finish line picture suggested. It is lore that during the race’s closing stages, Mapei owner Giorgio Squinzi told team manager Patrick Lefevere over the phone that the Belgian team leader had to win. Not so, according to the man himself.
“Lefevere took the decision,” Squinzi told me in 2018, a year before his death, for Rouleur. “This didn’t correspond to my expressed desire, which was to have them all together in Roubaix fighting it out in the sprint,” Lefevere suggested that Museeuw was the team’s pre-agreed leader.
Mapei repeated the exceptional 1-2-3 feat in 1998 and 1999, but it was the last occasion that three riders from the same team crossed the line in Roubaix together. It may well never happen again.
Here is what the star-studded Mapei-GB team have been doing since that fateful rout of the opposition in Roubaix.
Johan Museeuw, 1st
Museeuw powers over the Paris-Roubaix pavé on his way to a dominant team performance (Image credit: Getty Images)
On a dry, dusty day in northern France, Museeuw was in masterful form over the cobblestones. Even before the unexpected decisive move, he had linked up with teammate Wilfried Peeters, Erik Zabel (Telekom) and Laurent Desbiens (Gan) in a move with 150km to go.
Once caught by the reduced lead group, the Mapei-GB trio went for broke at Tilloy-les-Marchiennes, turning the race’s last two hours into a team time trial. A puncture at Orchies for Museeuw did little to slow them down.
The Belgian was missing turns in the last hour as the accepted frontman. “People thought there was commotion over victory. No, I was the leader. The problem was second or third,” Museeuw told me years later.
Footage from the race, with the eventual winner only wearing a casquette for protection and racing a Colnago C40 with 28mm tyres and rim brakes, belonging to another era. (Some rival teams’ bikes had Rock Shox front forks, too.)
It was a different time all right: Tafi, Bortolami and Ballerini all tested positive for banned substances during their careers, while Museeuw was suspended in the Landuyt affair for breaching anti-doping laws and admitted post-career to purchasing EPO and Aranesp.
After suffering another puncture on the race’s final sector at Hem, inside the closing ten kilometres, Bortolami and Tafi waited. Museeuw hit the front in the streets of Roubaix to take his first Paris-Roubaix title.
After a career-threatening crash in the 1998 race, he returned to win two more editions, pointing to his injured leg as he crossed the line in 2000.
After wrapping up his career in the spring of 2004, Museeuw has been an active figure in the cycling community. He had an eponymous bike brand and is an ambassador for Wahoo Benelux, Specialized, Ekoi and Le Col.
As well as pedalling in Belgium and Spain this winter, the “Lion of Flanders” occasionally pops up in south-eastern England, riding in the lanes where his partner is based. According to his Strava profile, Museeuw logged almost 13,000 kilometres in 2024 – not bad for someone approaching his 60th birthday.
Gianluca Bortolami, 2nd
Gianluca Bortolami in the 2003 Ronde van Vlaanderen (Image credit: Getty Images)
For a World Cup winner who won the Tour of Flanders and a Tour de France stage, as well as several other prestigious one-day races, Bortolami has kept a low profile since bowing out of pro cycling at the end of 2005 with myocarditis.
Based in the north Italian region of Piemonte, he is the team manager of Pool Cantù 1999 - GB Junior Team, often driving the car at junior races.
His 17-year-old son Julian won silver in the points race at the 2024 Junior European Track Championships, so the family name may be returning to the bunch soon.
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Andrea Tafi, 3rd
Tafi speaks to the media ahead of his final edition of Paris-Roubaix in 2005 (Image credit: Getty Images)
The Italian was unhappy at the orders from the team car to finish third. “In that moment, I was disappointed. More than disappointed,” he recalled years later.
Still, it fits with their team motto of vincere insieme - winning together. “That was the strength, the real point of Mapei. We knew that if Museeuw won today, someone else would win the next day,” Tafi said.
He would get his own Paris-Roubaix triumph in 1999, riding 30 kilometres solo to victory.
After retiring in 2005, Tafi stayed fit, competing in granfondo and master-category races. At 52, he talked about making an eye-catching comeback for the 2019 Paris-Roubaix and even registered with the UCI as a professional. However, a broken collarbone in a crash at a local event scuppered his return.
He runs an eponymous borghetto in the Tuscany hills close to Lamporecchio, surrounded by olive trees. Many of the available holiday residences are named after bike races he won – cycling fans can stay in the Paris-Tours one, for instance, complete with a covered outdoor veranda.
Franco Ballerini, 5th
Ballerini returned to Mapei-Quickstep in 2001 to complete his final Spring Classics campaign (Image credit: Getty Images)
The defending champion punctured at the moment of his teammates’ decisive move and two more times during the 1996 race.
Nevertheless, he used his strength to return to the chasing group and powered away with Gewiss rider Stefano Zanini, reducing the deficit to his Mapei teammates to 60 seconds at one point. Post-race, the Italian claimed that some roadside fans were abusing and spitting at him for chasing Museeuw.
However, Ballerini made Zanini do the work in the final 25 kilometres, and only his compatriot’s powerful sprint prevented a Mapei 1-2-3-4.
The towering Tuscan won the GP des Amériques, Omloop Het Volk and a Giro d’Italia stage during his long career, but Paris-Roubaix was his obsession. He finished 13 successive editions between 1989 and 2001, winning in 1995 and 1999. “This race has to be earned; it is a lesson in life,” he once said. “All year long, the rider chooses his objectives, but Paris-Roubaix chooses you.”
It was only fitting that the cobbled Monument be Ballerini’s final race as a pro. As he circled the Vélodrome André-Petrieux for the last time, he revealed an under-vest with the words “Merci Roubaix.”
Post-career, it was often a case of “grazie Franco”from his charges. As a long-time Italian national cycling coach and selector, the Tuscan oversaw the squadra azzurra to Worlds and Olympic road race success for the likes of Mario Cipollini, Paolo Bettini and Alessandro Ballan.“Ballero” was a popular figure in his native cycling scene.
A motor racing enthusiast, he died in February 2010, aged 45, while navigating in a rally event when the car he was racing in left the road. A cycling school for young riders bearing his name lives on, while the Team Franco Ballerini Juniores, based in his hometown of Pistoia, is run by his former Mapei teammate Luca Scinto.
Wilfried Peeters, 11th
Peeters emerges from the Trouée d'Arenberg in the 2001 edition of Paris-Roubaix (Image credit: Getty Images)
A hard-riding flahute, Peeters is the central figure of an enduring cycling photograph from the mud-spattered 2001 edition of Paris-Roubaix. In it, he resembles a bike-riding Texas Chainsaw Massacre murderer as he rides out of the Arenberg Forest, clad in a balaclava and covered in muck.
Aside from two years racing and then DS'ing with Domo, “Fitte” Peeters has been with Soudal-QuickStep and its past iterations for 30 years, stepping into the team car in 2003. The man from Mol is a key managerial presence for the spring Classics, with his knowledge of every hill, corner and cobblestone and how the Flemish crosswinds can shape a race.
In a 2024 Het Nieuwsblad interview, Peeters entertained the idea of becoming coach of the coaches, spending less time in the team car. “I’m fifty-nine now, and Patrick always comes with his nonsense about sixty years [being the maximum age for a DS],” he said.
“Then I say: 'Patrick, take a look in the mirror.' … I would like to continue doing what I am doing now for a few more years. I still have my place.”
Ludwig Willems, 40th
Willems at the Belgian national team's pre-world championships press conference in 2024 (Image credit: Getty Images)
A long-time right-hand man to Johan Museeuw, Willems supported his Mapei teammates to numerous Classics wins, finishing eighth at Paris-Roubaix himself back in 1998.
Since retirement, Willems worked at the Vlaamse Wielerschool (Flemish Cycling School) as a trainer and coordinator, a decades-old initiative that was started by Rik Van Looy in the 1960s. He ended that role in 2016to focus on his work coaching the Belgian national women's and junior women’s road teams.
Willems has steered them at numerous world championships and Olympic Games. The 58-year-old described the combination of Lotte Kopecky’s recent Olympic road race bronze medal in Paris and the 2023 Worlds road title in Glasgow as the “icing on the cake” of his career.
Bart Leysen, 49th
Leysen alongside Museeuw on a training ride in 2000 (Image credit: Getty Images)
Leysen enjoyed the best years of his career after moving to Mapei in 1995, winning the E3 Prijs Harelbeke and Schaal Sels that season. In the 1996 Paris-Roubaix, he gave his wheel to Ballerini after the Italian punctured.
Predominantly a worker on a team with immense strength-in-depth, Leysen reckoned that the mercurial Frank Vandenbroucke was the best natural talent he saw at Mapei.
“The really good leaders we had possessed a lot of talent, but they also worked really hard,” he told me in 2018. “Museeuw was really talented too, but if you know how much he trained.”
Leysen retired from pro cycling in 2002 and is currently a sports director at Tudor Pro Cycling, having previously worked at Lotto Soudal and Alpecin-Deceuninck in the past.
His son Senne is also a pro cyclist, racing for the squad captained by Mathieu van der Poel between 2020 and 2024.
Tom Steels, DNF
Steels was in the car as Remco Evenepoel secured third-place on debut at the 2024 Tour de France (Image credit: Getty Images)
Steels was the team’s only rider who did not finish the 1996 Paris-Roubaix. However, no rider won more races in the multi-coloured Mapei jersey than the Belgian. Most notably, the sprinter won nine Tour de France stages, eight Vuelta a España stages and two editions of Ghent-Weveglem.
The ice to Wilfried Peeters’ fire behind the scenes on Soudal-QuickStep, the sports director and trainer has become a trusted manager and sprint train guru, working closely with the likes of Mark Cavendish, Marcel Kittel and Tim Merlier.
“The sport evolves over time, but we can teach riders a lot on tactical skills,” he says in his profile on Soudal-Quick Step’s website. “The more you learned year-by-year, the more you can give them a head start based on what you experience.”
In 2014, Steels was a co-founder of vzw Bijs along with his wife and other parents, a non-profit organisation and house facility for children with physical and mental disabilities. His daughter Lobke has a rare abnormality in the ALG13 gene.
Patrick Lefevere
Lefevere stood down from his long-time role as CEO of Soudal-Quickstep at the end of 2024 (Image credit: Getty Images)
December saw a seismic changing of the guard, as Patrick Lefevere stepped down as CEO of Soudal-QuickStep after 22 years in the hot seat.
For half that period, his team were the most prolific in the sport and before that in the 1990s, he had risen to the top of the managerial ranks at Mapei.
On a sporting level, his longevity and pedigree as a sports director has few comparisons. Tactically, Lefevere read races deftly and had a knack for getting the best out of his charges, while keeping collective egos, ambitions and tight team budgets in check.
Lefevere regularly made headlines, mixing straight-talking with occasional crass comments or disrespectful remarks, such as likening Sam Bennett’s return to Bora in 2021 to “women who return home after abuse”.
As the structure of modern cycling teams has mushroomed, Soudal-QuickStep evolved and grew too, while resuming a squad in his image.
The leading Belgian team without Lefevere is a bit like Manchester United in the wake of epochal manager Alex Ferguson’s departure. There are big shoes (and a snappy suit) for new CEO Jurgen Foré to fill.
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