Alpecin-Premier Tech

The Belgian squad launched by the brothers Philip and Christoph Roodhooft in 2009, earlier known as BKCP–Powerplus and Corendon–Circus, began life as a structure focused on cyclo-cross. It got acquainted with success thanks to Niels Albert, world champion in 2009 and 2012. It gradually expanded its activities to road cycling until in 2019 it became part of the Pro Continental category, a gateway to star-studded events, including the Grand Tours from 2021 onwards, before its promotion to the WorldTour in 2023.

Ever since Niels Albert unexpectedly hung up his bicycle in 2014, the team has bet the farm on Mathieu van der Poel, who, as a rider who competes in cyclo-cross, road cycling and mountain biking, is the perfect fit for the squad. He made his Tour de France debut in 2021, lining up for the start in Brest with a burning desire to slip on the Yellow Jersey that had always eluded his grandfather Raymond Poulidor. He came up short in Landerneau, where Julian Alaphilippe emerged victorious at the top of the Fosse aux Loups, but he turned on the afterburners the next day to clinch the bonus sprint and prevail in the mad dash to the line in Mûr-de-Bretagne.

Alpecin–Fenix showed the depth of its roster on the third day of racing, when Tim Merlier claimed the first bunch sprint in Pontivy thanks to a lead-out from the Yellow Jersey himself. MVDP again made a statement when he fought tooth and nail to defend his lead in the Laval time trial. After saving his overall lead by eight seconds over Tadej Pogačar, he showed his commitment to the old adage that the best defence is a good offence in the longest stage of the Tour, a true classic finishing in Le Creusot in which he and Wout van Aert put on a real show for the fans right from the start.

Once Pogačar had stripped him of the golden fleece in the first Alpine stage, he eased up to keep something in the tank for the Olympic MTB event (where he ended up crashing), but with the clear intention to return to the Tour in 2022. He subsequently wore the maglia rosa in the Giro, but he dipped too much into his reserves to finish the Italian race, leading to his withdrawal halfway through the Grande Boucle, where he had not been much of a factor.

Jasper Philipsen, who had been the baby of the 2019 Tour de France while racing for UAE Team Emirates and was already a multiple-time La Vuelta stage winner, filled the void left by Alpecin–Deceuninck's charismatic leader and became the most prolific sprinter of the 2022 Tour, with victories in Carcassonne and on the Champs-Élysées, where he made amends for his defeat at the hands of Wout van Aert in 2021. In 2023, he doubled his haul to four stage wins and confirmed his status as the fastest gun in the Tour de France, also scoring a near-miss in Paris. He pulled on the green jersey after stage 4 and never looked back, counting on the reliable support of Van der Poel, who put his own ambitions on the back burner to prepare for the Worlds, which had been moved from their usual autumn slot to the month of August.

Van der Poel and Philipsen are now a well-oiled juggernaut used to steamrolling the competition both in summer and in the Flemish classics a couple of months earlier. Philipsen, second only to Biniam Girmay in the fight for the green jersey in 2024, has bagged ten stage wins in four Tour de France starts. In 2025, he came out swinging and claimed both the opening stage and the inaugural Yellow Jersey in Lille, but his dream soon turned into a nightmare when he crashed out of the race at the intermediate sprint of stage 3. Mathieu van der Poel, however, kept the golden fleece in the team for another four days after storming to victory in Boulogne-sur-Mer. The Belgian squad completed its hat-trick on the eve of the finale, with its back-up sprinter, Kaden Groves, cruising to a solo win in Pontarlier. While it now goes by the name Alpecin–Premier Tech, it has preserved the core of its roster and remains as uninterested as ever in the mountains and the general classification.