Paterberg Seldom Lies In the E3 Saxo Bank Classic, the final climb of the Tour de Flanders was the decisive point. The Jumbo-Visma duo of Wout Van Aert and Christophe Laporte showed surprising strength and disappeared from view with less than 40km remaining in the race, and were not seen again until they reached the podium in Harelbeke.

Twelve months ago, Kasper Asgreen used the strength in numbers of his team to win in Harelbeke. Once again, he was the only team representative in the chasing group with a good 10th place finish on Quick Step Alpha Vinyl, 1:36 ahead of the unassailable Jumbo Visma.

"He was stronger than me," Asgreen said briefly of Van Aert, who pulled up in the mixed zone.

His disappointment was palpable, but as the defending champion, he felt obligated to speak. In any case, at a press conference the previous afternoon, he admitted that Jumbo Visma had supplanted Quick Step as the strongest group on the cobbles.

"That's the reality. Jumbo is in very good shape right now and I didn't have the legs to keep up," Asgreen said, dismissing the notion that his COVID-19 in February had affected his performance here.

In the meantime, he finished third in the Strade Bianche.

"Normally, the illness I had five or six weeks ago shouldn't affect me anymore, but obviously I'm not in good enough shape right now to keep up with Jumbo," Asgreen said.

"Normally I wouldn't think so, but I'm not as good as they are."

Quick-Step has led Niki Terpstra, Zdenek Stival, and Asgreen to victory in the last three E3 Harelbeke, giving their rivals an idea of how the self-proclaimed Wolfpack could set them back a week later in Rondo.

This time, Quick Step was put in the unfamiliar position of how to beat not only a dependable individual in Van Alto, but also a dominant group in Jumbo Visma.

Thiesj Benoot finished ninth on Friday after policing the chasing pack in the finale, and Mike Tunissen and Nathan Van Hooydonk also helped lay the groundwork. At this point, Van Aert is the leading candidate for the ronde.

"It's certainly possible to beat him. Now I want to go home and analyze the race and come up with a better plan for next time."

Outside the Quick-Step Alphavinir bus, coach Tom Stiels Sportif had already begun his analysis, claiming that his team was not that far off the pace, and that he was sick in Paris - Nice and did not compete in Ghent-Wevelgem He cited the absence of Yves Lampère as a mitigating factor.

"It turns out we're not that far behind," Steele told Cycling News. 'We're closing the gap as a team. Going into these races, we had a lot of illnesses and we tried to recover as much as we could. And now we're hoping to close the gap."

When Van Aert made his first acceleration in Teyenberg with 80 km to go, it was clear that this race would be contested on the pace of Jumbo Visma. The climb, once a favorite of Tom Boonen, now shaped the race to Van Aert's liking, with Quick Step once on the back foot.

Of the group of seven that formed at the top, three were from Jumbo-Visma and Asgreen was from Quick Step.

This group then swelled to 16 riders, including three from Quick Step, but Davide Ballerini did not survive long at the front and Florian Senechal suffered an unfortunate puncture. In the finale, Asgreen was again isolated, even if there was little he could do against the blunt force of Jumbo Visma in Paterberg.

"At one point there were 16 riders in front of us, and there were three of us there. Of course, Ballerini had to fall back, and then there was Florian's puncture.

"Then they went on to the Paterberg. This is a very specific climb and if you're not in the wheel gutter you're always in trouble. But that doesn't mean they weren't strong

"Van Aert and Laporte were very strong. If you give them ten seconds, you always struggle to close the gap.

Asgreen was at least in the same race as Van Aert and Laporte longer than anyone else, but his range of action was limited because he was isolated in the finale.

"Kasper is okay, but of course it's always difficult when it's three against one," Steels said. A little more than a week after the ronde, there is the conundrum.