After two wins in three days for Alpecin-Deceuninck to start March, just one men's WorldTour team is left without a victory so far in the 2025 season – Intermarché-Wanty.
The Belgian team has the smallest budget in the WorldTour this season, with the team relying on a €14 million to get them through the year. That's less than a third of the budget of the sport's richest team, UAE Team Emirates-XRG.
Alpecin-Deceuninck, led by superstars Jasper Philipsen and Mathieu van der Poel, scored their first two wins of the season in recent days as the pair took Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne and the Ename Samyn Classic.
The pair of triumphs leaves Intermarché-Wanty as the final top-level squad still searching for success. So far there have been two podium spots – courtesy of Arne Marit on stage 2 of the Tour Down Under and Biniam Girmay on stage 3 of the Volta ao Algarve – while Kuurne brought a fourth place for Marit.
Speaking to Het Nieuwsblad, Intermarché-Wanty manager Dimitri Claeys rued that the team took on their 'home race' at the Ename Samyn Classic without reigning champion Laurenz Rex, while they also missed Girmay at the weekend as he attended the birth of his second child.
"[Rex] fell ill the night before," Claeys said. "With Tirreno-Adriatico and the upcoming Classics in mind, we didn't want to take any risks.
"[It wasn't] a difficult decision," sporting manager Aike Visbeek added, referring to Girmay missing Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Kuurne. "That scenario had been discussed beforehand. We are a family team. You have to live up to that at times like this, especially since Biniam had also missed the birth of his first child."
The team's secondary leader, Hugo Page, also fell ill before the weekend, leaving them continuing to search for a maiden victory as they head towards Strade Bianche, Paris-Nice, and Tirreno-Adriatico. Smaller races, such as the GP Monseré and GP Criquielion, are also coming up, providing further opportunities to break the duck.
Back in 2021, the squad was forced to wait until Taco van der Hoorn's Giro d'Italia stage win in May for their first win of the year, and they'll be hoping to avoid a similar long wait this time around. In 2022, 2023, and 2024 they took their first win of the year in late January.
"We have indeed started very well in the past three years," Visbeek said. "But then you know that the coin can also fall the other way. We are now in that phase."
Despite their troubles, the team should be safe in the WorldTour for the next period from 2026 onwards.
As of February 24, they stood in 16th position on 20,941 points, ahead of Picnic-PostNL and Cofidis, and well clear of the teams ranked 19th to 20th, Arkéa-B&B Hotels (16,582 points), Uno-X Mobility (16,165) and XDS-Astana (15,874).
The team's big star Girmay was their points leader last season, racking up 3,352 last year as he took four wins, including three stages at the Tour de France and the points jersey to boot. They'll again be looking to him to score the big results through the rest of the spring and again in July.
However, the team is fighting an uphill battle, having lost riders including Mike Teunissen and Madis Mihkels over the winter in addition to waving goodbye to Circus as a major sponsor thanks to Belgium's ban on gambling advertising in sports.
"We do feel that budgets in the WorldTour are increasing more and more," Claeys said. "And of course, everything starts with the quality of riders and the staff with which you can support them.
"Extra money would certainly be welcome to continue fighting against teams where the budget is two or three times larger."
Visbeek said that the team has overcome the odds before, including with their successes last season. Girmay will soon be back in the saddle, too.
"Of course, the budget is a limitation, but let's be honest – in 2024 we were even further away from the average budget and then we won three stages and green in the Tour. And in the juniors and U23s we won European titles," he said.
"We are now making an altitude training camp out of [Girmay's] stay in Eritrea, just like Wout van Aert is currently scheduling one. We knew the birth was coming so together with his trainer Frederik Veuchelen, we worked out the scenario in advance.
"After a period of training, Bini is always good straight away."
