Wouter Weylandt - Career

Career

In September 2004, Wouter Weylandt became a member of the team Quick Step-Davitamon, participating in the Memorial Rik Van Steenbergen, Grote Prijs Jef Scherens and Circuit Franco-Belge, where he took twelfth place. He was part of the Belgian team in the under-23 category at the 2005 UCI Road World Championships.

Weylandt turned professional for Quick Step-Innergetic in 2005, but this first professional season was marred by mononucleosis detected at the beginning of the year. Towards the end of the season, he won the GP Briek Schotte (nl), and finished fifth at the Memorial Rik Van Steenbergen event and the National Award, demonstrating his excellent sprinting qualities.

In 2006, his first full season, he finished fifth in the Three Days of West Flanders, then second in the Nokere Koerse, where he won the bunch sprint behind Bert Roesems. During this season, he failed to achieve any victories, apart from the small GP Vichte, but showed great consistency in the sprint, in particular, winning the points classification of the Tour of Poland and finishing fifth in the Championship of Flanders.

In 2007, Weylandt won further victories. In March, he won a stage of the Three Days of West Flanders, which he finished second overall, 5 seconds behind Jimmy Casper. Two weeks later, he won the Tour of Groene Hart, then finished fourth in the Grand Prix de l'Escaut. On good form, he won three more stage wins during the rest of the season in the Tour of Belgium, the Ster Elektrotoer and the Eneco Tour. Finally, during the Tour of Poland, he took advantage of a good performance with his team in the team time trial of the 1st stage to take the leader's yellow jersey for a day.

2008 began just as well for Weylandt. He won the sprint in Nokere Koerse, and finished second in the Tour of the Groene Hart, defeated by Tomas Vaitkus. In April came one of the best performances of his career on the one-day races, finishing third in the classic Gent–Wevelgem behind Oscar Freire and Aurelien Clerc after a fierce sprint. Late in the 2008 season, Weylandt took part in the Vuelta a España, his first grand tour. He participated as lead-out rider for team leader Tom Boonen, but when he dropped out Weylandt seized his chance and won the 17th stage in Valladolid. Building on the momentum of this victory, he took his fourth win of the season on the Omloop van de Vlaamse Scheldeboorden two weeks later.

Following the death of his friend Frederiek Nolf at the Tour of Qatar in February 2009, Weylandt won two more victories early in the season. He won the Memorial José Samyn race after a breakaway with Remi Cusin, and four days later, he won another stage of the Three Days of West Flanders. He finished eleventh in Paris–Roubaix in April.

In the absence of satisfactory results in late 2009 and early 2010, he was publicly criticized by the Quick Step manager Patrick Lefevere. In May, he won the sprint of the third stage of the Tour of Italy. Suffering from gastroenteritis requiring hospitalization, he left the race a few days later.

Although his contract at Quick Step was not renewed, he gained a contract with another UCI ProTeam squad, the newly-formed Leopard Trek. He was the second ranked sprinter on the squad, behind Daniele Bennati, and was placed in the team's squad for the 2011 Giro d'Italia as Bennati's lead-out rider. Bennati dropped out of the race line-up a few days before the start.