Soudal-QuickStep have been hyping up Remco Evenepoel’s potential to claim their 1,000th victory during the organisation’s existence, and after the time trial world champion powered to the win in Wednesday’s Critérium du Dauphiné time trial, they sent out a press release bragging about this being the big one.
“To reach 23 years and 1000 victories, at the highest level is an achievement that we are hugely proud of,” Soudal-QuickStep CEO Jurgen Foré said.
“It is a milestone that is only made possible by years of dedication, teamwork, and unlimited passion. Each win tells a story in its own right, but the ethos of the team is that it’s never been about one individual.
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“These 1000 victories combine to make a story about the collective, a team standing for each other in the spirit of The Wolfpack. It is a tribute to every rider, every staff member and all our fans: this achievement belongs to all of you. It is a tribute to all the sponsors and partners supporting the team, and especially our main partners Soudal, Quick-Step and Specialized: your ongoing commitment and vision have been instrumental in making this happen.”
But was Evenepoel’s victory today really the team’s 1,000th win? It depends on how you count.
Cyclingnews’ results partner First Cycling has a total of well over 1,000 while Procyclingstats.com (PCS) lists only 998 including Evenepoel’s win today.
Counting professional wins is made more difficult because the QuickStep organisation has lasted through numerous changes in the classification of races and the UCI rules regarding which teams can compete in which classes.
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PCS don’t count Continental Championships in the team tallies and First Cycling do, but both count the World Championships and not the Olympic Games, even though those are also raced with national teams.
First Cycling’s total is over-inflated because they compile a more exhaustive list of results including national-level races, criteriums, cyclocross, gravel, track cycling, amateur races and far-flung under-23 and junior races, but PCS don’t.
Even if we exclude the obvious not pro races such as national events and criteriums and non-road disciplines, the two totals don’t match.
The short-lived Hammer series was technically a team race, and PCS give the victories to the team as a unit, while First Cycling gives the stages to individual riders, so even some riders’ totals – Evenepoel’s – differ between the two databases.
There are other factors, such as cases where riders were disqualified. For example, Carlos Barrdedo was stripped of his wins from 2007-2011 but these are still in First Cycling but not PCS.
Some of this is down to automation – for example, First Cycling appear to have applied victories won by QuickStep trainees before the post-August 1 trainee window.
Other discrepancies are oversights, like national titles won by Laszlo Bodrogi, Petr Vakoc and Marc de Maar that are missing from First Cycling’s totals.
In short, calling Evenepoel’s win the team’s 1,000th is rather arbitrary and it depends on how you count them, but the team has still been incredibly successful over their 23 seasons to date.
PCS counts 111 individual riders winning races for the team over the years. First Cycling counts 127 – still a lot of winners! And if they want to give this milestone to Evenepoel, he’s deserving of the honour as the second (PCS) or third (FC) most successful rider in the team’s history behind Tom Boonen.
“I am proud everything went perfect and that I delivered the team’s 1000th victory,” Evenepoel said. “This win is for Patrick Lefevere, for everything he has done for this squad and achieved over the past twenty years. It’s an outstanding milestone and the entire Wolfpack nation can be happy and proud of it.”