The Captain’s Log is series to take you behind the scenes of our team, hearing the leaders of this team, in their own words, what goes on in the sport’s biggest races, how plans do or not as intended and how we adapt on the fly. The Road captain is the one calling these shots from within the bunch. However, we wanted to go deeper, thus, it is only fitting that the first entry of the Captain’s Log sets the scene of this key role entails. 

The first entry comes from Belgian Xandro Meurisse, who with his 11 years of experience in the peloton, was the road captain for Wednesday’s La Flèche Wallonne, to which he also provides an inside view into team’s plan and how things unfolded. 

It’s about taking decisions when we're going to move in the front of the race. Also, if the leader wants to stop for a pee, the captain will stop with him. Communicate over radio what the situation is in that at that moment back with the car. Making sure to check in with the other guys on how they feel. There are lots of different things to think about. 

The plan was to go with Quinten and to try and get the best result possible. We knew it's a hard finish and there are no easy results. But we believed in it and we trust in the capacities of Quinten and the plan for me was to bring him in the best position possible on the last time up Mur de Huy.

With a bit more than one lap to go, I had mechanical problems, so I couldn't come back anymore. I could not complete my task. But Marcel took over really well and brought Quinten in the best position as possible for the last time up the Huy. 

There were some parts where we had to pay extra attention, between kilometer 90 and 100 there were some crosswind so it's always important you are watching out that not one team is trying to do something and that you catch you by surprise, you are too far back, you miss the splits and then you have to chase so this was a part to to pay a bit of attention and then as soon as you start the local loops on Côte-de-Cherave and Côte-des-Refs and Mur-de-Huy or like the three points where you have to be in front so actually almost the whole loop was better to pay attention and stay a bit in front.

With Sjoerd in the break. It was good to have somebody there and you never know where it will end up and it helps a bit if you are in the bunch and you catch him, see if still he has some energy to help the team a bit more, one last push to keep the team in front. But for me on Wednesday and overall it didn’t change a lot for me as I had the job to bring Quinton in the final.

Compared to last year, the weather was a big difference, it was almost freezing and raining and really cold compared to this year it was a nice sunny race day. The field was different last year also, with Tadej at the start, an impressive UAE team. It makes a big difference. But this year there was still stress in the bunch. We went quite fast into the local loops as the bunch wanted to keep the gap as small as possible as there were some strong guys in the breakaway. 

For me, the biggest difference was the weather different but overall, it’s often the same situation at Flèche. With a break and then the theme of favorites who are controlling. Every year, the whole bunch is putting all the cards on the last line for the last climb of the Mur de Huy.