Sourdal-Quick-Step took on the Tour de France, and in a sudden turnaround on stage 18, Caspar Asgreen silenced his team critics with a victory.

Three weeks earlier, when Asgreen became the Danish time trial national champion, his first victory in nearly 12 months, the former Tour of Flanders champion was already calling the win "more special than any other victory."

But that victory was completely eclipsed on Thursday by the 28-year-old's first Grand Tour stage win.

Coincidentally, the Tour de France finish in Bourg-en-Bresse was previously won in 2007 by Tom Boonen, a longtime star of the Belgian team and, like Asgreen, a specialist in the classics.

But now, 16 years later, the winners and losers are reversed. Instead of the stage being decided by a sprint, as it was when Boonen won, Asgreen and his three-man breakaway group somehow managed to hold off the peloton by a minimal margin. And unlike 2007, when Quick-Step took three stage wins and the green jersey, this gave the Belgian team its long-awaited first victory in the 2023 Tour.

"For a team like ours, it's obviously important to win," said the Belgian. It's been years since we've had at least one win in the Tour."

"We knew we had a chance, and without Fabio Jacobsen" -- the Soudal-Quick Step sprinter who left the race after a long battle with injuries from a crash -- "everyone was motivated to do something. I'm really happy it worked out."

With such an undulating course, it is clear that Asgreen's time trial skills were crucial to his eventual success. But Asgreen paid tribute to all the riders who took part in the break, including fellow TT specialist Viktor Kampenaerts (Lotto-Soudal), Belgian teammate Pascal Enkhorn, and Jonas Abrahamsen, who was making his Tour debut.

"It was a team time trial, so I couldn't have done it without the other three. It was a team time trial and we couldn't have done it without the other three. We've been through stages like this many times, with four, six, seven, eight riders, it wasn't ideal, but it's not the first time a small breakaway group has won a stage like this in the final week of the Tour."

"We didn't talk at all out there. Everyone just rode with dedication. If this doesn't work out, we can't look at each other. If everyone did that, we could have won today."

With a less than 20 second advantage with 15 kilometers to go, it was touch and go the entire way, and Asgreen said he began to think about a possible victory with one kilometer left in the race.

"In the last 10 kilometers, my time was way down. With a kilometer to go I was shaken off, but Victor came to the front and picked up the pace to lead out Ehnhorn. That's when I knew it was possible."

For Asgreen, the 2023 Tour has a very different ending than 2022, when he suffered the effects of a knee injury sustained in the Tour de Suisse and was DNS on stage 9, forcing him to abandon the rest of that year's races altogether due to chronic fatigue syndrome. The long break at the Volta ao Algarve this past February did not end with a victory, but at least a mountain prize. His victory on stage 18 of the Tour proved it to the world.

"After crashing in the Tour de Suisse, he was forced to abandon the Tour last year.

"I've come a long way and to be able to end it with a win is ...... I want to dedicate this to all the people who helped me and all my teammates. He was really emotional, so this is dedicated to him and his wife and everyone who has helped me this year."

"It's been a very tough year since I left the Tour last year," said Asgreen. This victory proves that I'm back where I belong."