After a dismal performance Saturday in Omloop Het Volk, Quick Step rebounded Sunday with a big finish and a big win in the Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne race in Belgium.

Steven De Jongh won the 193 km classic, beating Sebastian Langeveld of Rabobank to the line by 2 seconds in a winning time of 4 hours 27 minutes 3 seconds. CSC Aussie Matthew Goss was third, 4 seconds back in a bunch sprint that included four Quick Step riders, including rock star Tom Boonen.

In addition, Quick Step’s Big Gert Steegmans was 19th and Jurgen Van de Walle 21st.

The seven Quick Step riders blew up the peloton with about 80 kilometers to go, bridging the 1:30 gap to the initial breakaway of  nine riders that included Slipstream-Chipotle’s Steven Cozza — the second day in a row the American domestic team had a rider in the breakaway.

The Quick Step boys, with about 19 riders in tow, kept the pedal to the medal and whittled a 35-man group and roared Kuurne with a 20-man group for the three-lap circuit finish, which was some 4 minutes ahead of the 15 they had left behind and more than 7 ahead of the peloton.

After the usual attacks and counterattacks, Langeveld pulled away on the last circuit with De Jongh on his wheel, leaving De Jongh with enough gas to sprint past him at the finish.

The only downside for Quick Step on this day was world champion Paolo Bettini, who crashed out just 9 kilometers in the race and was taken to a hospital as a precaution. Still, it was a night-and-day difference between QS’s implosion Saturday and its explosion Sunday.

Twas another good day for Slipstream, though, with Cozza following Michael Friedman’s lead from Saturday at Omloop Het Volk and getting into the breakaway. Cozza couldn’t hang with Quick Step, though, and finished 24th.

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