Deceuninck-QuickStep racked up another 68 victories during the 2019 season, cementing their place as the sport's most successful squad after winning the UCI World Team Classification for the second year in a row.
It may have been five wins shy of the Belgian WorldTour team's 73 victories in 2018, but it was arguably made all the more special by the fact that Philippe Gilbert took the Paris-Roubaix title for the first time in his career and Julian Alaphilippe spent 14 days in the yellow jersey at the Tour de France.
A fantastic new video, below, called Riding with the wolves: A look at Deceuninck-QuickStep's 2019 season, published on the team's website and made by La Pédale – the team behind Cyclingnews' film trilogy last season: The Holy Week, Crescendo and Running With Wolves – allows fans to re-live what was another hugely successful year for the self-styled 'Wolfpack'.
Alaphilippe was arguably the standout rider once more, taking 12 wins in all, including at Strade Bianche, Milan-San Remo and Flèche Wallonne, alongside his Tour de France success, where he took two stage wins, and where it at one point looked as though he might hold on to finish on the podium.
Elia Viviani was first across the line 11 times in 2019, including at the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race, a stage at the Tour de France, the European Championships road race and the Cyclassics Hamburg, while Gilbert's emotional Roubaix victory meant that the Belgian has now won four out of cycling's five Monuments during his career, with only Milan-San Remo continuing to elude him, which he'll hope to put right in the future.
His excellent season at Deceuninck-QuickStep is perhaps a little bittersweet, however, as the 37-year-old will – like Viviani – move on to pastures new for 2020, with Gilbert heading to Lotto Soudal and Viviani joining Cofidis.
Fabio Jakobsen and Alvaro Hodeg continued their development at the squad, contributing wins that included the Dutch road race title and two stages at the Vuelta a España, and stage wins at the Adriatica Ioncia Race and BinckBank Tour, respectively, and there was the unexpected emergence – unexpected, at least, by its ferocity – of Remco Evenepoel and Kasper Asgreen.
Evenepoel came into his first pro season as a 19-year-old, and had already won a stage and the overall title at the Baloise Belgium Tour by June, and the young Belgian went on to win a stage at the Adriatica Ionica Race before winning the big one at the Clasica San Sebastian in August, followed by the European Championships time-trial title and silver in the time trial at the World Championships.
Twenty-four-year-old Asgreen, meanwhile, in only his first full season with the team, took a surprise second place at the Tour of Flanders in April, and then won stages at the Tour of California and the Deutschland Tour, as well as becoming the Danish time-trial champion.
As the team points out, it has spent more than 600 days at the top of the UCI World Team Classification – having won the title for a second year in a row – and this year notched up its 700th UCI win since the team's inception in 2003, with that milestone being celebrated, appropriately enough, with Gilbert's Paris-Roubaix win.
Few would bet against Deceuninck-QuickStep topping the table once more in 2020, with some new star names no doubt bubbling to the surface to ensure that the Belgian team stays at the head of affairs.
