It’s an iconic symbol from considered one of biking’s maximum evocative races. 3 riders from the Mapei-GB crew lift their fingers in triumph as they roll over the end line, nearly 3 mins forward in their closest opponents. Winner Johan Museeuw smiles and half-turns to his teammates Gianluca Bortolami and Andrea Tafi.
Mapei’s emphatic efficiency on the 1996 Paris-Roubaix was once a stark expression in their Spring Classics dominance all over the overdue Nineteen Nineties. After firing a 21-man staff away quickly after the diabolical Arenberg Woodland sector, the Italian super-team tamed one of the vital recreation’s hardest and maximum capricious races with a long-distance, three-man transfer. “We’ve performed a miracle,” sports activities director Fabrizio Fabbri stated on the end.
The outcome was once now not rather as harmonious because the end line image prompt. It’s lore that all over the race’s final levels, Mapei proprietor Giorgio Squinzi advised crew supervisor Patrick Lefevere over the telephone that the Belgian crew chief needed to win. Now not so, in line with the person himself.
“Lefevere took the decision,” Squinzi advised me in 2018, a yr sooner than his dying, for Rouleur. “This didn’t correspond to my expressed desire, which was to have them all together in Roubaix fighting it out in the sprint,” Lefevere prompt that Museeuw was once the crew’s pre-agreed chief.
Mapei repeated the phenomenal 1-2-3 feat in 1998 and 1999, nevertheless it was once the remaining instance that 3 riders from the similar crew crossed the road in Roubaix in combination. It should neatly by no means occur once more.
Here’s what the star-studded Mapei-GB crew were doing since that fateful rout of the opposition in Roubaix.
Johan Museeuw, 1st
Museeuw powers over the Paris-Roubaix pavé on his option to a dominant crew efficiency (Symbol credit score: Getty Photographs)
On a dry, dusty day in northern France, Museeuw was once in masterful shape over the cobblestones. Even sooner than the sudden decisive transfer, he had connected up with teammate Wilfried Peeters, Erik Zabel (Telekom) and Laurent Desbiens (Gan) in a transfer with 150km to head.
As soon as stuck by means of the diminished lead staff, the Mapei-GB trio went for broke at Tilloy-les-Marchiennes, turning the race’s remaining two hours right into a crew time trial. A puncture at Orchies for Museeuw did little to gradual them down.
The Belgian was once lacking turns within the remaining hour because the authorized frontman. “People thought there was commotion over victory. No, I was the leader. The problem was second or third,” Museeuw advised me years later.
Photos from the race, with the eventual winner solely dressed in a casquette for cover and racing a Colnago C40 with 28mm tyres and rim brakes, belonging to any other generation. (Some rival groups’ motorcycles had Rock Shox entrance forks, too.)
It was once a distinct time all correct: Tafi, Bortolami and Ballerini all examined sure for banned elements all over their careers, whilst Museeuw was once suspended within the Landuyt affair for breaching anti-doping regulations and admitted post-career to buying EPO and Aranesp.
After struggling any other puncture at the race’s ultimate sector at Hem, throughout the final ten kilometres, Bortolami and Tafi waited. Museeuw hit the entrance within the streets of Roubaix to take his first Paris-Roubaix name.
After a career-threatening crash within the 1998 race, he returned to win two extra editions, pointing to his injured leg as he crossed the road in 2000.
After wrapping up his profession within the spring of 2004, Museeuw has been an lively determine within the biking group. He had an eponymous motorcycle emblem and is an envoy for Wahoo Benelux, Specialised, Ekoi and Le Col.
In addition to pedalling in Belgium and Spain this iciness, the “Lion of Flanders” every now and then pops up in south-eastern England, driving within the lanes the place his spouse is primarily based. In line with his Strava profile, Museeuw logged nearly 13,000 kilometres in 2024 – now not unhealthy for any person coming near his sixtieth birthday.
Gianluca Bortolami, second
Gianluca Bortolami within the 2003 Ronde van Vlaanderen (Symbol credit score: Getty Photographs)
For a International Cup winner who received the Excursion of Flanders and a Excursion de France level, in addition to a number of different prestigious one-day races, Bortolami has saved a low profile since bowing out of professional biking on the finish of 2005 with myocarditis.
Primarily based within the north Italian area of Piemonte, he’s the crew supervisor of Pool Cantù 1999 – GB Junior Group, regularly using the automobile at junior races.
His 17-year-old son Julian received silver within the issues race on the 2024 Junior Eu Observe Championships, so the circle of relatives identify is also returning to the bunch quickly.
Signal as much as the Musette – our subscriber-only newsletterAndrea Tafi, third
Tafi speaks to the media forward of his ultimate version of Paris-Roubaix in 2005 (Symbol credit score: Getty Photographs)
The Italian was once unsatisfied on the orders from the crew automotive to complete 1/3. “In that moment, I was disappointed. More than disappointed,” he recalled years later.
Nonetheless, it suits with their crew motto of vincere insieme – profitable in combination. “That was the strength, the real point of Mapei. We knew that if Museeuw won today, someone else would win the next day,” Tafi stated.
He would get his personal Paris-Roubaix triumph in 1999, driving 30 kilometres solo to victory.
After retiring in 2005, Tafi stayed have compatibility, competing in granfondo and master-category races. At 52, he mentioned making an crowd pleasing comeback for the 2019 Paris-Roubaix or even registered with the UCI as a certified. Then again, a damaged collarbone in a crash at a neighborhood tournament scuppered his go back.
He runs an eponymous borghetto within the Tuscany hills with regards to Lamporecchio, surrounded by means of olive bushes. Most of the to be had vacation flats are named after motorcycle races he received – biking lovers can keep within the Paris-Excursions one, for example, whole with a lined outside veranda.
Franco Ballerini, fifth
Ballerini returned to Mapei-Quickstep in 2001 to finish his ultimate Spring Classics marketing campaign (Symbol credit score: Getty Photographs)
The protecting champion punctured this present day of his teammates’ decisive transfer and two extra occasions all over the 1996 race.
However, he used his power to go back to the chasing staff and powered away with Gewiss rider Stefano Zanini, lowering the deficit to his Mapei teammates to 60 seconds at one level. Put up-race, the Italian claimed that some roadside lovers had been abusing and spitting at him for chasing Museeuw.
Then again, Ballerini made Zanini do the paintings within the ultimate 25 kilometres, and solely his compatriot’s robust dash averted a Mapei 1-2-3-4.
The towering Tuscan received the GP des Amériques, Omloop Het Volk and a Giro d’Italia level all over his lengthy profession, however Paris-Roubaix was once his obsession. He completed 13 successive editions between 1989 and 2001, profitable in 1995 and 1999. “This race has to be earned; it is a lesson in life,” he as soon as stated. “All year long, the rider chooses his objectives, but Paris-Roubaix chooses you.”
It was once solely becoming that the cobbled Monument be Ballerini’s ultimate race as a professional. As he turned around the Vélodrome André-Petrieux for the remaining time, he published an under-vest with the phrases “Merci Roubaix.”
Put up-career, it was once regularly a case of “grazie Franco” from his fees. As a long-time Italian nationwide biking trainer and selector, the Tuscan oversaw the squadra azzurra to Worlds and Olympic highway race luck for the likes of Mario Cipollini, Paolo Bettini and Alessandro Ballan.“Ballero” was once a well-liked determine in his local biking scene.
A motor racing fanatic, he died in February 2010, elderly 45, whilst navigating in a rally tournament when the automobile he was once racing in left the street. A biking college for younger riders bearing his identify lives on, whilst the Group Franco Ballerini Juniores, primarily based in his place of birth of Pistoia, is administered by means of his former Mapei teammate Luca Scinto.
Wilfried Peeters, eleventh
Peeters emerges from the Trouée d’Arenberg within the 2001 version of Paris-Roubaix (Symbol credit score: Getty Photographs)
A difficult-riding flahute, Peeters is the central determine of a long-lasting biking {photograph} from the mud-spattered 2001 version of Paris-Roubaix. In it, he resembles a bike-riding Texas Chainsaw Bloodbath assassin as he rides out of the Arenberg Woodland, clad in a balaclava and lined in muck.
Apart from two years racing after which DS’ing with Domo, “Fitte” Peeters has been with Soudal-QuickStep and its previous iterations for 30 years, entering into the crew automotive in 2003. The person from Mol is a key managerial presence for the spring Classics, along with his wisdom of each and every hill, nook and cobblestone and the way the Flemish crosswinds can form a race.
In a 2024 Het Nieuwsblad interview, Peeters entertained the speculation of changing into trainer of the coaches, spending much less time within the crew automotive. “I’m fifty-nine now, and Patrick always comes with his nonsense about sixty years [being the maximum age for a DS],” he stated.
“Then I say: ‘Patrick, take a look in the mirror.’ … I would like to continue doing what I am doing now for a few more years. I still have my place.”
Ludwig Willems, fortieth
Willems on the Belgian nationwide crew’s pre-world championships press convention in 2024 (Symbol credit score: Getty Photographs)
An extended-time right-hand guy to Johan Museeuw, Willems supported his Mapei teammates to a lot of Classics wins, completing 8th at Paris-Roubaix himself again in 1998.
Since retirement, Willems labored on the Vlaamse Wielerschool (Flemish Biking College) as a instructor and coordinator, a decades-old initiative that was once began by means of Rik Van Looy within the Nineteen Sixties. He ended that position in 2016 to concentrate on his paintings training the Belgian nationwide girls’s and junior girls’s highway groups.
Willems has urged them at a lot of international championships and Olympic Video games. The 58-year-old described the mix of Lotte Kopecky’s contemporary Olympic highway race bronze medal in Paris and the 2023 Worlds highway name in Glasgow because the “icing on the cake” of his profession.
Bart Leysen, forty ninth
Leysen along Museeuw on a coaching journey in 2000 (Symbol credit score: Getty Photographs)
Leysen loved the most productive years of his profession after shifting to Mapei in 1995, profitable the E3 Prijs Harelbeke and Schaal Sels that season. Within the 1996 Paris-Roubaix, he gave his wheel to Ballerini after the Italian punctured.
Predominantly a employee on a crew with immense strength-in-depth, Leysen reckoned that the mercurial Frank Vandenbroucke was once the most productive herbal ability he noticed at Mapei.
“The really good leaders we had possessed a lot of talent, but they also worked really hard,” he advised me in 2018. “Museeuw was really talented too, but if you know how much he trained.”
Leysen retired from professional biking in 2002 and is lately a sports activities director at Tudor Professional Biking, having up to now labored at Lotto Soudal and Alpecin-Deceuninck prior to now.
His son Senne could also be a professional bicycle owner, racing for the squad captained by means of Mathieu van der Poel between 2020 and 2024.
Tom Steels, DNF
Steels was once within the automotive as Remco Evenepoel secured third-place on debut on the 2024 Excursion de France (Symbol credit score: Getty Photographs)
Steels was once the crew’s solely rider who didn’t end the 1996 Paris-Roubaix. Then again, no rider received extra races within the multi-coloured Mapei jersey than the Belgian. Maximum significantly, the sprinter received 9 Excursion de France levels, 8 Vuelta a España levels and two editions of Ghent-Weveglem.
The ice to Wilfried Peeters’ hearth at the back of the scenes on Soudal-QuickStep, the sports activities director and instructor has turn into a relied on supervisor and dash teach guru, running intently with the likes of Mark Cavendish, Marcel Kittel and Tim Merlier.
“The sport evolves over time, but we can teach riders a lot on tactical skills,” he says in his profile on Soudal-Fast Step’s website online. “The more you learned year-by-year, the more you can give them a head start based on what you experience.”
In 2014, Steels was once a co-founder of vzw Bijs in conjunction with his spouse and different folks, a non-profit organisation and space facility for youngsters with bodily and psychological disabilities. His daughter Lobke has a unprecedented abnormality within the ALG13 gene.
Patrick Lefevere
Lefevere stood down from his long-time position as CEO of Soudal-Quickstep on the finish of 2024 (Symbol credit score: Getty Photographs)
December noticed a seismic converting of the guard, as Patrick Lefevere stepped down as CEO of Soudal-QuickStep after 22 years within the sizzling seat.
For half of that length, his crew had been probably the most prolific within the recreation and sooner than that within the Nineteen Nineties, he had risen to the highest of the managerial ranks at Mapei.
On a carrying degree, his longevity and pedigree as a sports activities director has few comparisons. Tactically, Lefevere learn races deftly and had a knack for buying the most productive out of his fees, whilst retaining collective egos, ambitions and tight crew budgets in take a look at.
Lefevere continuously made headlines, blending straight-talking with occasional crass feedback or disrespectful remarks, comparable to likening Sam Bennett’s go back to Bora in 2021 to “women who return home after abuse”.
Because the construction of recent biking groups has mushroomed, Soudal-QuickStep developed and grew too, whilst resuming a squad in his symbol.
The main Belgian crew with out Lefevere is somewhat like Manchester United within the wake of epochal supervisor Alex Ferguson’s departure. There are giant sneakers (and a handy guide a rough swimsuit) for brand new CEO Jurgen Foré to fill.
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