WorldTour Ranking: 4/17 (same 2014)
Win Count: 54 (Down from 62 in 2014)
Top Riders: Rigoberto Uran (13), Michal Kwiatkowski (25), Julian Alaphilippe (28), Zdenek Stybar (31), Niki Terpstra (37)
Etixx-QuickStep topped pro cycling's win list for the fourth-straight year, securing 54 victories over the 2015 season, compared to 44 for Team Sky and 40 apiece for Lotto-Soudal and Katusha. Movistar, which topped the 2015 WorldTour rankings had just 32 wins.
That accomplishment alone would make a good year for most teams that are built around one-day races and daily success in the Grand Tours, but the long list of previous glory for Patrick Lefevere's Belgian program sets a pretty high bar. Star rider Tom Boonen's Classics-ending crash at Paris-Nice was a huge blow for the team, which was hoping he would add at least one more monument to his already large collection. 2015 was more about quantity than quality.
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Missing their top gun for major monuments like Flanders, Roubaix and Liege, the team had to be satisfied with Michal Kwiatkowski's win at Amstel Gold and victories at lesser Classics like Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne, Strade-Bianche, Handzame Classic and Ronde Van Zeeland Seaports.
The wins came early in 2015 for Etixx-QuickStep, thanks to Mark Cavendish at the Tour de San Luis and Gianni Meersman at the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race in Australia. The January wins carried on into multiple stage wins for Cavendish at the Dubai Tour and for Niki Terpstra at the Tour of Qatar. Tony Martin added a time trial win at the Volta a Algarve, and the team looked as ready for the classics as they could be without Boonen. Cavendish struck first at Kuurne, Zdenek Stybar followed at Strade-Bianche, and Kwiatkowski cleaned up at Amstel.
Another bright spot, of course, was the arrival of Julian Alaphilippe and his run through the Ardennes Classics, where he finished second in both Fleche Wallonne and Liege-Bastogne-Liege. The 23-year-old Frenchman carried his good form to Tour de Romandie, where he landed on the podium twice, and then on to the Tour of California, where he won the Mt. Badly stage and was narrowly beaten for the overall by Peter Sagan on the final day. Alaphilippe was ill with a virus toward the end of the season, so it will be interesting to see how he rebounds next year.
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