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| Manager | Lucien Van Impe | ||
| One-day victories | 2 | ||
| Stage race overall victories | none | ||
| Stage race stage victories | 3 | ||
| Previous season • Next season | |||
The 2011 season for the Veranda's Willems-Accent cycling team began in January at the Grand Prix d'Ouverture La Marseillaise and ended in October at the Nationale Sluitingsprijs. Veranda's Willems-Accent was a UCI Professional Continental team for the first time in 2011 – having been part of the UCI Continental Circuits since their foundation in 2008 – meaning they had to be proactively selected by the organisers of UCI World Tour events, of which they were selected for several races early in the season, mainly held in Belgium or the Netherlands.
Veranda's Willems-Accent took only five victories during the 2011 season, of which three came in summer stage races. Steven Caethoven took the final stage victory at the Delta Tour Zeeland in the Netherlands, while Stefan van Dijk and Jurgen Van Goolen won stages at the Route du Sud race, held in the south of France. The team also recorded no fewer than 28 top-ten placings in single-day races, including two victories for Evert Verbist at the Beverbeek Classic in February and Gregory Habeaux at Dwars door het Hageland in July. Although not winning any of the races, van Dijk was the team's most consistent performer, and ended the season in sixth place in the UCI Europe Tour points standings, while Staf Scheirlinckx took an eighth place finish at World Tour level, in the Tour of Flanders.
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Ages as of January 1, 2011.
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The team had very little success in the single-day races in the early part of the year, and it was not until February before the team achieved a top ten placing in a race. At the Beverbeek Classic in Belgium, Verbist and Dries Hollanders – who would join Veranda's Willems Accent later in the year as a stagiaire – attacked off the front of the field and in the process, set up a two-man sprint for the victory in Hamont-Achel. Verbist gapped Hollanders by a second to win the race for the second time,[9] after previously winning the race in 2006 with the Chocolade Jacques-Topsport Vlaanderen team.[10] In March, van Dijk took two second place finishes – both coming in mass sprints – at Omloop van het Waasland behind Landbouwkrediet's Aidis Kruopis,[11][12] and the Nokere Koerse behind Gert Steegmans of Quick Step.[13]
Later in March, Van Groen finished ninth in the Classic Loire Atlantique,[14] and Vanlandschoot took a sixth place finish the next day in the Cholet-Pays de Loire race.[15] In April, during one of the team's wildcard entries to a World Tour race, Scheirlinckx finished in eighth place in the Tour of Flanders,[16] having bridged up to the lead group prior to the final climb of the race, the cobbled Bosberg hill, 10 km (6.2 mi) from the finish in Meerbeke. Van Dijk finished fourth in the Scheldeprijs three days later,[17] having avoided a crash in the finishing straight which eliminated several riders from contention for the top placings. This result was again followed the next day by a top ten finish by Vanlandschoot, as in the Grand Prix Pino Cerami, Vanlandschoot finished in ninth place.[18] May and June brought the team two more top ten finishes each month; Verbist finished tenth in the Circuit de Wallonie,[19] and eighth in the Gullegem Koerse national event in Belgium,[20] while in June, van Dijk finished fifth in the Tour de Rijke,[21] and Van Groen finished tenth in another national event, the Ruddervoorde Koerse.[22]
The team also sent squads to the Grand Prix d'Ouverture La Marseillaise, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Kuurne–Brussels–Kuurne, Le Samyn, De Vlaamse Pijl, the Handzame Classic, Dwars door Vlaanderen, E3 Prijs Vlaanderen – Harelbeke, Gent–Wevelgem, Hel van het Mergelland, Brabantse Pijl, the Grand Prix de Denain, the Tour du Finistère, the Amstel Gold Race, the Tro-Bro Léon, La Flèche Wallonne, the Eschborn-Frankfurt City Loop, Halle–Ingooigem and the Internationale Wielertrofee Jong Maar Moedig, but placed no higher than 11th in any of these races.
The second half of the 2011 season for Veranda's Willems-Accent was more impressive than the first half of the year, taking top ten placings in 18 out of 22 single-day races held between July and October. It began with a victory, with Habeaux taking the spoils – for his first professional win – in Dwars door het Hageland, held in Aarschot, Belgium.[23] Verbist finished sixth in the Grand Prix José Dubois,[24] before Habeaux took another top ten finish in Antwerpse Havenpijl in August.[25] Later in August, van Dijk finished third in the Dutch Food Valley Classic,[26] Verbist finished tenth in the Châteauroux Classic,[27] Drucker finished sixth in the Grote Prijs Stad Zottegem,[28] with Van Goolen adding a fourth top ten within the space of a week, with third in the Druivenkoers Overijse event.[29]
Van Dijk then reeled off a run of five consecutive races in which he finished as the team's best rider. The run began towards the end of August with a tenth place finish in the Schaal Sels-Merksem event,[30] which was followed by a trio of fourth places in early-September at the Grote Prijs Jef Scherens,[31] the Memorial Rik Van Steenbergen,[32] and Paris–Brussels,[33] before a third place the day after, in the Grand Prix de Fourmies.[34] Later in the month, van Dijk finished eighth in the Kampioenschap van Vlaanderen,[35] and second behind Quick Step's Guillaume Van Keirsbulck in Omloop van het Houtland.[36] October brought the team three final top ten placings; Verbist finished eighth in the Tour de Vendée,[37] Vernaeckt took his best result of the season with ninth place in Binche–Tournai–Binche,[38] and van Dijk concluded his season with fifth place in the final Belgian race of the season, the Nationale Sluitingsprijs.[39]
The team also sent squads to the Polynormande, the Grand Prix de Wallonie, the Grand Prix d'Isbergues, Paris–Bourges and Paris–Tours but finished no higher than 13th in any of these races.
Compared to the team's single-day form, Veranda's Willems-Accent were not so prominent during the stage races. Schmitz took a minor classification win at the Étoile de Bessèges, winning the mountains classification comfortably, scoring more than double the points of his closest rival Yuri Trofimov of Team Katusha.[40] The team's first stage win did not come until June, when Caethoven won the final stage of the Delta Tour Zeeland into Terneuzen.[41] Later in the month, the team took two more stage wins at the Route du Sud, with van Dijk winning the opening stage into Samatan,[42] and Van Goolen won the third stage into Bagnères-de-Luchon, having soloed to victory from an earlier twelve-man breakaway, eventually winning the stage by 96 seconds.[43] Van Dijk also took out the points classification for the team,[44] which was the team's final classification win of the year. Later in the season, Degand took third place in the two-day Paris–Corrèze race.[45]
The team also sent squads to the Tour du Haut Var, the Tour of South Africa, Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen, the Three Days of De Panne, the Circuit de la Sarthe, the Presidential Tour of Turkey, the Four Days of Dunkirk, the Tour de Picardie, the Tour of Belgium, the Tour de Luxembourg, the Tour de Wallonie, the Eneco Tour, the Tour du Limousin, and the Tour de Wallonie-Picarde, but did not achieve a stage win, classification win, or podium finish in any of them.
Veranda's Willems-Accent was not selected to ride any of the three Grand Tours held in 2011.
| Date | Race | Competition | Rider | Country | Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| February 6 | Étoile de Bessèges, Mountains classification | UCI Europe Tour | Bram Schmitz (NED) | France | |
| February 26 | Beverbeek Classic | UCI Europe Tour | Evert Verbist (BEL) | Belgium | Hamont-Achel |
| June 12 | Delta Tour Zeeland, Stage 2 | UCI Europe Tour | Steven Caethoven (BEL) | Netherlands | Terneuzen |
| June 16 | Route du Sud, Stage 1 | UCI Europe Tour | Stefan van Dijk (NED) | France | Samatan |
| June 18 | Route du Sud, Stage 3 | UCI Europe Tour | Jurgen Van Goolen (BEL) | France | Bagnères-de-Luchon |
| June 19 | Route du Sud, Points classification | UCI Europe Tour | Stefan van Dijk (NED) | France | |
| July 3 | Dwars door het Hageland | UCI Europe Tour | Gregory Habeaux (BEL) | Belgium | Aarschot |
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