Magnier brings some of the old swagger back for Soudal Quick-Step

Jens Voigt has never been much given to understatement and, besides, outlandish enthusiasm is the default setting of so much sports broadcasting these days. When he thrust the TNT Sports microphone in the direction of Soudal Quick-Step sports director Davide Bramati in Sofia on Sunday, he unsurprisingly opted for hyperbole, but the Italian wasn’t exactly willing to play along.

By winning stage 3 of the Giro d’Italia, Paul Magnier had racked up his second victory in three days on the corsa rosa, and Voigt suggested to Bramati that this constituted the “best start to the Giro ever” for his team.

Voigt’s overt excitement was quickly deflated by Bramati’s cool, almost jaded detachment. “No, we did it before,” Bramati shrugged, citing Elia Viviani’s brace of wins on the first two road stages back in 2018.

Indeed, Quick-Step have made a habit of fast starts at the Giro over the years. In 2016, Marcel Kittel also won the first two road stages, while a year later, Fernando Gaviria nabbed two stages in the first week. Mark Cavendish wore the first pink jersey in 2013, a feat emulated by Remco Evenepoel a decade later. 

But even though Magnier’s sparkling opening act at the Giro isn’t entirely new terrain for Soudal Quick-Step, it still feels like a while since they’ve passed along this way. That last early pink jersey in 2023, after all, came as part of Evenepoel’s tilt at final overall victory and in the middle of a long-term attempt to reconfigure the team’s priorities on his behalf.

The approach brought success, including Evenepoel’s victory at the 2022 Vuelta a España and his podium finish on the 2024 Tour de France, but it also came with a high bill that Quick-Step inevitably had to pay for elsewhere.

They were repeatedly relegated to an irrelevance at the cobbled Classics, while Tim Merlier’s remarkable ability to fend for himself papered over the sizeable cracks in a sprint department that was once so well stocked they could omit Cavendish himself from their Tour line-up.

Evenepoel’s departure for Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe at the end of last season led to a reset at Soudal Quick-Step, with CEO Jürgen Foré prioritising the rebuilding of the squad’s cobbled Classics unit and promising a renewed focus on sprinting.

The shift in emphasis didn’t quite yield the anticipated results in the spring. The team even endured five whole weeks without a win between March and April before Merlier scorched to Scheldeprijs victory following an injury-blighted start to the year. 

New arrival Jasper Stuyven later put a better gloss on a subdued Classics campaign when he scored a podium finish at Paris-Roubaix, but Magnier was supposed to be the figurehead of the revamped Soudal Quick-Step after notching up 19 wins last year in his second pro season. 

He began the campaign on a high note with a brace of wins at the Volta ao Algarve, but his Classics outings were decidedly underwhelming.

By the time Magnier placed a distant 36th at the Tour of Flanders, the team had already decided to pull the plug on his spring, confirming that his Paris-Roubaix debut would have to wait for another year. 

At first glance, it looked as though suggestions that Magnier might prove to be the next Tom Boonen had been rather fanciful, but a closer analysis of his performances was altogether more forgiving. 

Magnier’s challenges at Opening Weekend, Gent-Wevelgem and Dwars door Vlaanderen were all compromised by mechanical mishaps of various kinds. And even if Magnier’s visibly nervous reaction to his trials at Gent-Wevelgem was a sure sign of inexperience, the team’s faith in their young talent wasn’t dented in the slightest.

As was planned from the start of the season, Magnier was retained as the focal point of their Giro challenge, with Stuyven and Dries Van Gestel assigned to serve as his lead-out detail. That trust was already repaid during the Grande Partenza in Bulgaria. 

The 22-year-old picked up the first maglia rosa of the race with an effervescent sprint in Burgas, and he followed up with an even more impressive triumph in Sofia on Sunday, careering past Jonathan Milan himself in the final 100m to take the spoils for the second time.

“Paul is young and he’s a boy who has margin for improvement,” Bramati told RAI afterwards. “We’re working slowly but he’s already won two stages, and it’s already a lot for a young guy to do that in only his second Grand Tour.”

Even so, Bramati was again keen to downplay the idea that Magnier’s achievement was a particular novelty, preferring to couch it as a return to form for the team. “We did it before a few years ago, but it is nice,” Bramati conceded. “But now the stage to Naples will be the next objective.”

Soudal Quick-Step still have some way to go before restoring their past pre-eminence in full, of course, and Magnier’s win was only their seventh of the current season. At the same point in 2018, for instance, their running tally was already at 29 and they would end the campaign with a team record 73.

But after a mixed start to the post-Evenepoel era, Magnier’s Giro displays give hope for Soudal Quick-Step’s future. It’s still early, but they look to be rediscovering some of the swagger and blunt confidence of old. Just ask Jens Voigt.