Prior to a stage win at this year's Volta ao Algarve in late Febr๊uary, Stybar's last victory had come at the 2017 Czech nation🔥al championship road race.
H𒁏e had battled back to winning ways in the Algarve, and then confirmed his form at the Belgian one-day race – which acts as the opener to the spring Clas꧃sics season – where the former cyclo-cross star's previous best finish had been seventh in 2015.
And while itꦜ appears that manager Patrick Lefevere's Deceuninck-QuickStep team – in its variously sponsoreﷺd guises over the years – can almost win one-day races at will, the Omloop had been evading the Belgian team for a while.
"I onlꦓy heard the day before yesterday at the press conference that QuickStep hadn't won Omloop for 14 years, which was ama🌟zing," Stybar said. "I am very happy that I could win here, for the team, but also for me."
Stybar's impressive solo victory came after the Czech rider attacked inside the final three kilometres from a five-man group, which also included Greg Van Avermaet (CCC Team), Tim Wellens (Lotto Soudal), Alexey Lut𝓀senko (Astana) and Dylan Teuns (Bahrain-Merida), who crossed the line in that order, nine seconds behind the victorious Stybar.
