Sourdal Quickstep failed to win its 62nd Cobblestone Classic at the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad on Saturday. The Belgian team has accumulated victories every year through the spring since its inception in 2003, but has only won four of the 21 Belgian openers.

There are plenty of races and opportunities left this spring. After all, this is the first race of them all. But for a team accustomed to winning and doing their best in the peloton, Davide Ballerini's sixth place in Ninove was nothing to celebrate.

First, 2021 Tour de Flanders winner and Classics co-leader Caspar Asgreen was absent due to illness, and then, during the race, Tim Declercq, a candidate for Domestique of the Year, fell in a crash.

Some bad luck wasn't enough for the racers, who battled through the second half of the race, which was dominated by the Dutch Jumbo Visma.

"It's not just about today's result. Ballerini was sixth, but he wasn't in the race," Wilfred Peters, former Classics star and the team's general sporting director, told Cycling News after the race. [Tim DeClercq's crash had some of the worst moments of the race.

"It's not the first time here that we didn't have a good result. But we have won in Merlier and the UAE, and we have won in Alaphilippe and Ardèche. We can be happy about this as we head into the first half of the Classic."

Yves Lampert, co-leader of Omloop with Frenchman Florian Senechal, paused briefly at the finish in the freezing conditions to share his views.

"There is work to be done. Declercq crashed, Seneschal had bad luck. It was not our day. But Ballerini rode strong in the final," the Belgian rider told the assembled media just before the finish.

"I had to put my foot down in Muir. If I had done that, the race would have been over. This is not what I wanted."

Pieters admitted that the team did the wrong thing on a day when Jumbo set the pace early on and attacked repeatedly until Dylan Van Baar finally succeeded in making the long range.

"I think everyone realizes it wasn't a good idea. On the first acceleration, Jumbo-Visma got away quickly. 'We agreed before the race not to take the initiative, but that doesn't mean we fell asleep. If I have to chase once, I will chase all day."

Sunday is another day, with the second half of the opening weekend in the form of the more sprinter-friendly Coulee Brussels Coulee.

The last four editions have been won three times by Bob Jungels, Asgreen, and last year by Fabio Jacobsen.

The Dutch sprinter will be back on Sunday to help get the team's opening weekend going, with Ballerini, Lampert, and Senechal also returning to help him. Last year, team boss Patrick Lefebvre gave a "motivational speech" to the team before the coulees following their disappointing result in Omloop.

Peeters, however, issued a word of warning to those expecting Jacobsen to take his second win of the season and a sprint finish as promised.

"The race is hard. It's not just for sprinters. But I want to get a good result."