Soudal-QuickStep carefully avoided naming Paul Magnier as a team leader for Omloop Het Nieuwsblad but inside the team and inside the peloton, the 20-year-old French rider is considered a possible winner and future Classics champion.
“Can I win the Omloop this weekend? Why not?” Magnier told Het Nieuwsblad on Wednesday, after doing a first recon ride of the Omloop course with his teammates.
Magnier’s words were more than just youthful bravado. He is naturally confident and hugely talented.
“It’s important to be confident in yourself,” Manier told Cycling News in an exclusive interview earlier this year.
“You shouldn’t be over confident but it’s important to believe in your team and to believe in yourself. I feel really good at Soudal-QuickStep, my form is good and my moral is good, so I’m just waiting for the first big races.”
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Magnier seems to be taking all the expectation in his stride and calmly shrugs off the idea of being one of the next ‘super talents’ of the sport.
“I prefer not to really think about that. I prefer to focus on my my own development,” he said. “I think its really important to enjoy everything and to be happy, on the bike and off the bike, at home with your family and friends. The team has taught me the importance of that.
“I know I’ll have some good times with the team. I did really good season last year. I hope I can do even better this year but there is no pressure. I hope my career will last 15 years and my success will come when it comes.”
Magnier won three stages at the Tour of Britain last year before crashing out and suffering serious concussion. He reportedly also needed 36 stitches in injuries across his ankle, hip and knee.
“I don’t remember anything about it. It’s a big black hole in my mind,” Magnier explained. “But the doctors were very careful with me afterwards. I stayed off the bike for a long time and started to build it up again very slowly.”
One of Magnier’s youthful talents is an ability to recover and learn quickly. He won his first race with Soudal-QuickStep in 2024 and again this year, when he won the stage 1 uphill finish of the troubled Étoile de Bessèges. He also won the sprint for second place at the Figueira Champions Classic last weekend. He is fast but can survive on climbs and has a six sense for racing.
He is racing Omloop Het Nieuwsblad for the first time but competed on mountain bikes when with the Trinity Racing development team in 2023. On the road at last year’s Dwars door Vlaanderen he was 39th.
He has added muscle and power during the winter and gone head to head with Tim Merlier in training sprints, winning some of them. His huge power output and near 2000-watt peak has sparked praise from Mathieu van der Poel.
The new Tom Boonen
Magnier will only turn 21 on April but by then he could have become Soudal-QuickStep’s next big Classics rider.
“I see the new Tom Boonen in him,” directeur sportif Wilfried Peeters told Het Nieuwsblad, before he and the team tempered their words.
“He’s a super good guy,” team coach Klaas Lodewyck said. “I compare him a bit to Jasper Philipsen: he’s also someone who knows exactly what he wants, but who could also forget his shoes in the meantime. Paul is a bit the same.
“It’s like he has two personalities. On the one hand he’s really calm and chill but in the race he’s a killer. We’re going to see some serious punches from him if this progression continues.”
Magnier’s race programme includes next Tuesday’s Le Samyn on the cobbles, Milan-San Remo, Gent-Wevelgem and Dwars door Vlaanderen.
“I wouldn’t be ‘shocked’ if he were already riding in the finals,” teammate Bert Van Lerberghe told Het Nieuwsblad.
“I don’t see why not. I really believe that. Paul is the future and the future can come quickly. There won’t be fifteen people that ride up the road on Saturday without him.
“If you are a fast finisher, you don’t need to drop everybody to win,” he said.
“I can stay in a small group and maybe fight for the victory. But you still need to be in that small group, so you still need to be strong in the Classics. You need to be smart and save the legs, but I’m in the right team to learn quickly.”
Magnier seems to have everything except the experience of racing in Belgium. On Saturday he can count the support and advice of Yves Lampaert, Pascal Eenkhoorn, Gil Gelders, Casper Pedersen, Dries Van Gestel and Pepijn Reinderink, who is a late replacement for Mattia Cattaneo, not racing due to sickness. Magnier will also race Sunday’s Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne in support of Merlier but also as a possible alternative leader.
He travelled to Belgium at the start of the week and trained on the cobbled lanes of Fanders on Tuesday before the official Omloop Het Nieuwsblad recon ride with Remco Evenepoel and other training rides in the last few days.
“Omloop will be a difficult race and it’s also my first time. So I have to race smart and save energy for a possible sprint finish,” he told VTM after the recon.
“I’d never seen the route before. It’s packed with corners, pinch points and perhaps sectors in the wind. It’ll be important to race well as a team.
“I’ll soon find out what I can do. My legs are good, now we’ll soon find out what happens in the race.”
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