Classics and time trial specialist Stefan Küng heads into the Opening Weekend this Saturday for his 9th participation in Omloop Het Nieuwsblad – which means the 31-year-old has had greater than sufficient visits to the race startline in Gent to understand that it is by no means too smart to make too many predictions about what can occur.
It isn’t simply that Omloop Het Nieuwsblad shall be the Groupama-FDJ racer’s handiest Vintage earlier than Paris-Great. Extra to the purpose, yearly when Omloop comes round, skilled racers like Küng are all too acutely aware of how dramatically Omloop raises the bar when it comes to situation and shape calls for in comparison to what is come earlier than within the season.
Whilst Küng’s highest lead to Omloop is a relatively low-key 9th in 2020, he is were given lots extra good fortune in an identical occasions to spice up his morale earlier than Saturday. Simply to call the races he is doing this spring, he is taken podium puts in each E3 and Dwars door Vlaanderen, within the Excursion of Flanders he has a 5th and a 6th position, and in Paris-Roubaix, he has been best 5 or higher yearly since 2022, when he claimed 3rd.
“You have an idea, but it’s always good to be back in racing and to be focused on this good start to the season. Because once this [Algarve] is done, the serious business starts.”
Küng positioned a lowkey thirtieth within the ultimate time trial in Algarve, a level the Swiss celebrity may have discovered disappointing, given he lately has 22 time trials in his palmares, two of them within the Portuguese race. However Küng had already stated that the brand new Algarve TT layout of an uphill end did him no favours, and as he instructed Eurosport afterwards after grinding his strategy to the summit of the Alto do Malhão, “It was not the most pleasant one”.
“I wanted to finish the Volta ao Algarve with a good feeling on the bike, but sometimes it’s better when it’s not 100% yet, to give the body time to recover and be ready for the Opening weekend and what comes after.
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“Now I am not flying but, so I am not very, more than happy, however it is the first race of the season, we modified our means slightly, so we need to accept as true with the method for the reason that paintings we did over the wintry weather was once just right. I haven’t any doubt I will be in a position for the Spring Classics.”
Küng pointed out that his different approach means he is not quite firing on all cylinders like he has been at this point in the year, but “evidently the massive targets are in April”.
“I simply want to keep calm, get better, do Omloop and Paris-Great and the legs will handiest give a boost to. As an athlete, you love to have great emotions within the first race of the season, however it’s nonetheless handiest the primary race. So I feel my revel in is helping me to stick calmer than I might were 5 years in the past,” he concluded.
The debate over whether it’s possible to get a better idea of form for the upcoming challenges in Belgium from races like the Algarve is a perennial one. But Küng comes firmly down on the side of those who think you can come away with a lot of useful information for the spring from five days of racing in Portugal.
“Additionally, you want to have race kilometres within the legs earlier than the beginning of the Classics evidently. That is at all times going to lend a hand.”
While the goal in Omloop is always to score the best possible result, Küng is unwilling to put a number on the kind of result he’d like to have before the race. It’s not just his own usual uncertainty he has to handle, as he explained, but also that “with a brand new 12 months, there is at all times a brand new more or less dynamics within the Classics”.
“We have additionally were given some new guys within the workforce, too, there is been slightly of a turnover, so we will know extra after it.
“I know this race suits me but it’s the first of the season so it’s hard to predict anything in particular. Until you race that first Classic, you never really know how you are.”
