2011 Vacansoleil–DCM season Manager Daan Luijkx One-day victories 6 Stage race overall victories 2 Stage race stage victories 14 Previous season • Next season
The 2011 season for the cycling team began in January at the Tour Down Under and ended in November at the Amstel Curaçao Race. As a UCI ProTeam, they were automatically invited and obligated to send a squad to every event in the UCI World Tour; Vacansoleil-DCM became a ProTeam for the first time ahead of the 2011 season.
Improving upon 14 victories in the 2010 season, Vacansoleil-DCM managed 22 victories during the season. Having previously been invited to the 2009 Vuelta a España, Vacansoleil-DCM contested the other Grand Tour events – the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France – for the first time. Despite rumours that the team faced exclusion due to the doping scandals involving team members Riccardo Riccò and Ezequiel Mosquera, they were included pursuant to UCI rules. The team rarely featured in the Giro, while the team was more successful at the Tour de France. Johnny Hoogerland held the lead of the mountains classification on two occasions, while Romain Feillu finished in the top five on four stages during the first half of the race. Hoogerland also made headlines when he and 's Juan Antonio Flecha were sideswiped by a car while they rode in a breakaway. Outside of the Grand Tours, Thomas De Gendt took WorldTour stage victories at Paris–Nice and the Tour de Suisse, with Borut Božič also taking a stage win in Switzerland.
The team was also successful in single-day races, with six different riders all achieving a victory. Despite all the victories, the team finished last in the UCI World Tour rankings, since the majority of their victories came during UCI Europe Tour races. ProTeams, though eligible to participate in the races, were not eligible to earn points toward the Europe Tour ranking (just as Professional Continental teams were not eligible to earn points toward the World Tour ranking).
2011 roster Ages as of January 1, 2011.
Riders who joined the team for the 2011 season Rider2010 team Santo Anzà Maxim Belkov Thomas De Gendt Stijn Devolder Martijn KeizerRabobank continental team Pim Ligthartneo-pro (stagiaire: ) Ezequiel Mosquera Marcello Pavarin Ruslan Pidgornyy Mirko Selvaggi
Riders who left the team during or after the 2010 season Rider2011 team Brice Feillu Martin Mortensen Matthé Pronk Stéphane RossettoNogent-sur-Oise Bobbie Traksel Arnoud Van Groen
One-day races
Spring classics
The team started the single-day season with a third-place finish for Feillu at the Grand Prix d'Ouverture La Marseillaise in January, and first-year professional Ligthart taking a similar placing in February's Clásica de Almería. In March, Westra took his first victory since the 2009 Tour de Picardie, by winning the Classic Loire Atlantique, in France. After creating a four-man breakaway with Anthony Geslin of , 's Jean-Marc Marino and rider Frédéric Amorison, they were joined by five other riders within the last ; one of the five, Amorison's teammate Bert Scheirlinckx attacked in the closing stages but Westra followed and outsprinted him to the line, eventually winning by two seconds. Four days later, Marcato finished sixth in Dwars door Vlaanderen. Ligthart won his first race as a professional in April, by winning Hel van het Mergelland in a sprint finish of 26 riders.
The following day, Leukemans was in contention for victory at the Tour of Flanders, attacking off the front of the field on the Molenberg, remaining in contention with the persistent attacks by other riders within the last of the event; Leukemans was aided by De Gendt and Devolder, but could do no better than a seventh-place finish. In the Grand Prix Pino Cerami, Marcato finished in second place, having been part of an eleven-man breakaway formed with around remaining, before losing to Scheirlinckx in a two-man sprint after the two had jettisoned their fellow escapees. Leukemans suffered the same result in Brabantse Pijl, losing out to 's Philippe Gilbert in another two-man sprint, after the two riders attacked off the front of a seven-man lead group. Following a second place at the Grand Prix de Denain, Feillu won the Tour du Finistère in mid-April, gapping the field in an uphill sprint to the line. Leukemans continued his good form into the Ardennes classics, taking seventh place in the Amstel Gold Race, and ninth in Liège–Bastogne–Liège.
May was not as successful for the team, as Marcato finished in sixth place in the Eschborn-Frankfurt City Loop at the start of the month, and Ruijgh took seventh place in the Grand Prix de Plumelec-Morbihan, towards the end of the month. Keizer took his first professional victory, by winning the Boucles de l'Aulne. From a breakaway of five riders, Keizer attacked in the closing stages and soloed to the win. While in June, Gardeyn finished fourth in the Tour de Rijke, Ruijgh finished second to 's Dirk Bellemakers in the Ruddervoorde Koerse national event, and Veuchelen finished eighth in Halle–Ingooigem.
The team also sent squads to the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Kuurne–Brussels–Kuurne, Le Samyn, the Nokere Koerse, the Handzame Classic, Milan – San Remo, the Cholet-Pays de Loire, E3 Prijs Vlaanderen – Harelbeke, Gent–Wevelgem, the Scheldeprijs, Paris–Roubaix, the Tro-Bro Léon, La Flèche Wallonne, the GP Herning, the Rund um Köln, the ProRace Berlin, and the Gullegem Koerse, but placed no higher than 12th in any of these races.
Fall races
Shortly after the Tour de France, Božič took third place in the Vattenfall Cyclassics. Willem Wauters – who joined the team as a stagiaire in August – made an immediate impact for the team, finishing second behind 's Svein Tuft in the Grote Prijs Stad Zottegem, while the following day, Leukemans followed up his overall win from the Tour du Limousin with victory in Druivenkoers Overijse – for the second year in succession – beating 's Davy Commeyne and Jurgen Van Goolen of to the line.
The team achieved more top-ten placings in September, taking six within the space of a week; Božič finished ninth in the Memorial Rik Van Steenbergen, and sixth in Paris–Brussels, while Leukemans finished sixth in the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec World Tour race, and third on his return to Europe, in the Grand Prix de Wallonie. Feillu and Marcato each took a seventh place in the Grand Prix de Fourmies, and the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal respectively. Mouris and Keizer finished third in Duo Normand, while on the same day, Božič finished fourth in the Grand Prix d'Isbergues. In October, Marcato took his first professional win in the Tour de Vendée, and also finished second to 's Greg Van Avermaet in Paris–Tours, Feillu finished eighth in Paris–Bourges, and Devolder finished seventh in the Chrono des Nations time trial. Hoogerland completed the team's year, in November, with third place in the Amstel Curaçao Race.
The team also sent squads to the Clásica de San Sebastián, the Dutch Food Valley Classic, the Châteauroux Classic, the GP Ouest-France, the Schaal Sels-Merksem, the Grote Prijs Jef Scherens, the Kampioenschap van Vlaanderen, Omloop van het Houtland, Binche–Tournai–Binche, the Nationale Sluitingsprijs, and the Giro di Lombardia, but finished no higher than 11th in any of these races.
Stage races The team was very successful at the Tour Méditerranéen in February, as Feillu won three consecutive stages, along with the points classification, and Poels finished as the best young rider in third place overall, having finished in the same position on the final and most difficult stage. Westra finished third in the Volta ao Algarve, before De Gendt took the team's first World Tour stage win of the season, managing to just outlast the advancing field in a sprint finish to the opening stage of Paris–Nice. Feillu took another stage victory at May's Tour de Picardie, en route to an eventual overall victory in the race. The following week at the Circuit de Lorraine, De Gendt won the third stage – giving him the race lead for a time – and Feillu won the fifth and final stage, with De Gendt finishing at the top of the mountains classification, and the team won their respective classification. Westra won the opening prologue of the Tour of Belgium, with the squad eventually winning the teams classification. Feillu took his eighth victory of the season at June's Tour de Luxembourg, taking the final stage win.
Later in June, the team took two stage victories in the Tour de Suisse; in the fifth stage into Tägerschen, following an attack by Marcato, Božič took out the uphill sprint to the line, and on the seventh stage that finished in Austrian town Serfaus, De Gendt triumphed after breaking clear of a 17-man group with remaining on the stage, eventually winning the stage by over half a minute. Held concurrently with the Tour de France, van Leijen won the second stage of the Tour de Wallonie, with Selvaggi later finishing on top of the mountains classification, and the squad took another teams classification win. Poels claimed a stage win during the Tour de l'Ain in August, eventually finishing the race second overall after cracking from the race lead on the final stage, but did win the race's sprints classification. Hoogerland also took the team's sixth mountains classification win of the year. Leukemans completed the team's stage race successes with a stage and overall win at the Tour du Limousin.
The team also won lesser classifications at the Étoile de Bessèges, the Critérium International, the Three Days of De Panne, and the Tour de Pologne. The team also sent squads to the Tour Down Under, the Vuelta an Andalucía, Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen, Vuelta a Murcia, Tirreno–Adriatico, the Volta a Catalunya, the Tour of the Basque Country, Ronde van Drenthe, the Tour de Romandie, the Four Days of Dunkirk, the Critérium du Dauphiné, the Delta Tour Zeeland, the Ster ZLM Toer, the Danmark Rundt, the Eneco Tour, the Tour of Britain, the Tour de Wallonie-Picarde, and the Tour of Beijing, but did not achieve a stage win, classification win, or podium finish in any of them.
Grand Tours
Giro d'Italia The UCI considered a potential revoking of Vacansoleil-DCM's ProTeam licence in mid-February, which would stop the team from automatically being invited to any World Tour race and be demoted to a Professional Continental team, as they were in 2010. This licence issue came to light due to continued investigations into doping regarding two of the team's riders; Mosquera and Riccò. Mosquera had tested positive for hydroxyethyl starch at the 2010 Vuelta a España, while Riccò had been admitted to hospital earlier in February, amid allegations that he had carried out a self-administered autologous blood transfusion at his home. (For more information on the Riccò allegations, see the Dismissal of Riccardo Riccò section)