The last few seasons have not been ideal for Stijn Devolder, but he has a chance to put all those to bed this year when he will take over from the injured Fabian Cancellara as the leader of Trek Factory Racing’s Classics team. 

The two-time Tour of Flanders winner crashed hard and was briefly unconscious at Dwars door Vlaanderen last week, yet showed the typical Flandrian spirit to remount and finish the race. He suffered in E3 before starting De Panne yesterday.

“I don’t know exactly how much I’ve recovered,” Devolder told Cyclingnews after signing on ahead of stage 1. “On Friday I was really bad, but there was only one day to rest before it. But now I’ve had three days between E3 and this to recover a little bit, so I hope to have the good feeling again a little bit. I wait and I hope for the best.”

The answer was proved when he finished third on stage one, being the only rider to make the lead group of six not riding for Katusha or Lotto-Soudal.

“I was not sure how I would feel today. So for me, and for the team, we really needed this to have some confidence back after the black week we had last week,” Devolder said afterwards.

“The next two stages are dangerous for echelons and crashes so we will have to be with the team at the front and try to survive that, and then hopefully make a great TT on the final day,” he said when he was asked what he wanted to achive from the race in terms of keeping a high GC place and maybe even winning.

It is pivotal for the team that he maintains his form, as Cancellara, the favourite to win Flandera, is gone and Gert Steegmans has been regularly injured so far this year and wont be fit enough to contend for a big result the way things are just now.

“Of course, we have to try to do something on Sunday on our own. Fabian was the main favourite and it’s always good to have a strong rider like this in your team,” Devolder told Cyclingnews on Tuesday morning. “Now he’s not here but it’s no reason to panic.

We still keep the focus for Sunday and we’ll try to do something with the team we have here.”

He will make the adjustment from luxury cobbled domestique to team leader, which is what he did when he rode at Vaconsoleil, and he will look to do the team proud.

“It was a good role to be there in the final with Fabian and maybe to help him in the final if possible,” Devolder admitted. “But now he’s not here so if something happens and I have good legs I have to do it myself. That’s how it is now.”