Quick Step / 2006 season

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This article describes the history of the Quick Step-Innergetic cycling team in the 2006 season.

The season started very successfully with the victory of the Tour of Qatar by Tom Boonen. Several victories in smaller races followed in February. Tom Boonen then took his first victory in the UCI ProTour 2006 near Paris-Nice by winning the first stage. He followed up with two more stage wins. Paolo Bettini was successful almost at the same time at Tirreno-Adriatico , where he won two stages.

The first highlight was Milan-San Remo and Tom Boonen started the race as the top favorite, but the team achieved a tactical masterpiece and surprised with Filippo Pozzato as the winner of the race, who reached the finish as an outlier with a few meters lead. Then it went on to Tom Boonen's home country Belgium, where the Tour of Flanders was on the plan. As in the previous year, Tom Boonen dominated the race and won it confidently. At Paris-Roubaix , Tom Boonen lacked the strength to repeat his victory from the previous year and he only crossed the finish line in 5th place, but was upgraded to 2nd place because of the disqualification of three drivers who were ahead of him. At that time, Boonen was wearing the ProTour leadership jersey, which he lost to Alejandro Valverde a few weeks later .

The Giro d'Italia started in May , where two riders stood out from the team. On the one hand Paolo Bettini, who won a stage win and the points classification, on the other hand Juan Manuel Garate, who also won a stage and was the winner of the mountain classification. In June Tom Boonen returned to the big cycling stage and won a stage at the Tour de Suisse . Nick Nuyens also won a day's victory in Switzerland.

The Tour de France started on July 1st, but the Quick Step team remained rather pale. Tom Boonen was able to wear the yellow jersey for four days, but it wasn't enough to win a stage. The rest of the team also acted very unobtrusively. Matteo Tosatto was only able to break the spell two days before the end of the tour and win the first stage of this year's Tour of France.

In August Tom Boonen won three stages of the ENECO Tour . Paolo Bettini won the second stage of the Vuelta a Espana in the mass sprint.

Bettini, who was able to win the Lombardy Tour for the second time in a row, ensured a positive end to the season .

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