Sometimes the game just doesn`t break your way. On 72 different occasions last year, a Quick-Step Floors rider mounted the podium as a race winner, but somehow the honour evaded Zdenek Stybar. A clutch of third-place finishes at the tail end of the season were the closest he came to a winner`s bouquet, though the Czech`s most notable body of work came in two very different supporting roles in April and May, when he helped to tee up Niki Terpstra at the cobbles and then guide Elia Viviani at the Giro d`Italia. `I really had a lot of pleasure in the wins of my teammates, and I helped a lot of them to win their races, like at the Giro and the Classics,` Stybar told Cyclingnews in Portimão ahead of the opening stage of the Volta ao Algarve. `Of course, for me, it was a bit of a pity that I didn`t win any race myself, but I was up there in the finals in the one-day races and others. I think it was quite a good season last year, just without the win.`ADVERTISEMENT The statistics bear out Stybar`s impressions. Past Classics campaigns have had more obvious highlights - he won Strade Bianche in 2015 and placed second at Paris-Roubaix that year and again in 2017 - but Stybar`s 2018 spring was the most consistent of his career to date, as he placed in the top 10 at the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, E3 Harelbeke, Gent-Wevelgem and Strade Bianche. At times last spring, Quick-Step`s dominance was such the onus seemed to be on their riders to get up the road early and avoid being hemmed in by team duties. It wasn`t quite as straightforward as that, of course, but Stybar always seemed to be half a beat too early or too late when it came to going on the offensive. Such are the vagaries of riding for a team replete with potential winners on the cobbles, and Stybar does not believe that the departure of Niki Terpstra to Direct Energie will alter the lie of the land unduly at Deceuninck-QuickStep. Philippe Gilbert and Yves Lampaert remain in situ, while 2018 Liège-Bastogne- ...
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