It’s fair to say if you had to narrow it down to one rider in the peloton for whom Omloop Het Nieuwsblad holds no secrets, it is Greg Van Avermaet (AG2R Citroen), albeit by a very short margin over Philippe Gilbert (Lotto-Soudal).
The 36-year-old Belgian’s 14 starts to date is one less than the record in the current peloton, held by Gilbert. And Van Avermaet has the same number of wins as Gilbert - two, in his case in 2016 and 2017.
No disrespect to Gilbert but there is no doubt who is the most consistently successful current Omloop racer of the two. In the opening race of the Opening Weekend, Van Avermaet has four podium finishes and eight top five finishes, in both cases twice as many as Gilbert.
So if experience and success are both very much on Van Avermaet’s, side when it comes to Het Nieuwsblad, he also knows perfectly what Omloop means in the bigger scheme of things when it comes to a rider’s form for the Classics.
“It’s not that you have to win,” Van Avermaet told Cyclingnews during the recent Ruta del Sol, “but you have to have the feeling of having a good level, and that you can fight with the best. You have to be up there.”
However if a strong Omloop performance works wonders on a rider’s morale and focus for the rest of the Classics, a victory only makes that better.
“I won it two times, and for sure it’s nicer to win. Because a win in Omloop helps clear your head even more,” Van Avermaet explained.
So what are Van Avermaet’s chances of becoming the fourth rider ever to take three victories in the 77 years of the Omloop?
He is cautious about his chances, but by no means rules himself out of options for taking his first win since the GP Montreal in 2019 on Saturday.
“The condition is not too bad, but it’s not super yet, either,” Van Avermaet told Cyclingnews.
“I don’t feel myself at my top level, I’ll keep on working hard to get there… the first big test is Omloop and when we see how it goes there, we’ll see how far I’m still off my top form, too.”
Compared with other years, Van Avermaet says, his form is a little bit lower than his peak.
"I’m still searching for some good sensations. It’s not really bad, but I’m expecting a little bit more of myself. So I’m pushing myself a bit harder to get there and be ready,” he said.
“The week at the Ruta del Sol helped me a lot with my climbing, I’ve done a lot of good work in the good weather. Then I still have Tirreno to do the final touches. So it’s not too bad.”
At the other end of the Classics campaign, of course, there is the reversal in order of Amstel Gold and Paris-Roubaix.
It is a switch in dates that is already causing much debate among the Classics specialists regarding the implications for maintaining their one-day form, often in a precarious state by Paris-Roubaix, for another whole week.
Riders could do worse than ask Van Avermaet, for many years a rider who'd race post-Roubaix at least as far as Amstel Gold, and on several occasions, all the way through to Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
“For me, it’s never been a problem,” Van Avermaet said. “A lot of guys stopped after Roubaix but I always did Amstel, so it shouldn't be a challenge.”
“If you look at the race calendar, first they wanted to have Amstel and Roubaix on the same weekend. That was a pity. This way is the best solution.”
Van Avermaet confirms that he, at least, will be riding Amstel between the two cobbled Classics. “I think it’s a great race, even though I never had a good result there. By that point in the Classics, in any case, it’s just about doing a few recons. and recovering well before each race.”
As for Omloop he concludes, nothing really changes. The pre-race unpredictability, the intense reading of the omens for the rest of the season that the race invariably produces and of course all the drama and excitement sparked by the day’s racing itself.
As Patrick Lefevere put it recently about Omloop, “the time for the snacks is over, now comes the starter course.”
As Van Avermaet himself puts it: “It will be an interesting weekend for sure. And we will all know much more after it.”
