Niki Terpstra’s victorious solo escape in Paris-Roubaix yesterday sealed the Cobblestone season with the major triumph craved by General Manager Patrick Lefevere.

“We have the most wins of any team,” Lefevere told Cycling Weekly, “but we wanted to catch a big fish.”

Niki Terpstra broke clear of a group that also contained a couple of his own Omega team-mates, Tom Boonen and Zdenek Stybar. He soloed his way for the last 6.2 kilometres to cement the team’s 22nd win of the current season.

Lefevere’s mood took a notable turn for the better compared to the Tour of Flanders one week earlier when his team went home empty-handed despite having four riders in the winning move that witnessed Fabian Cancellara walk away with the honours.

“You always want the big fish, but you don’t always have the chance to catch it,” Lefevere said. “It’s the 22nd victory this season. We’ve won everything we’ve wanted to at the beginning of the season, even three of the six stages in País Vasco, where we’ve never had a result in the past. This team was ready to catch a big classic.”

With wins by Mark Cavendish and Tony Martin, Omega Pharma counts 22 wins so far this year. Giant-Shimano, according to Pro Cycling Stats, sits second at 17 wins while Team Sky ranks fifth with 10 victories

“We knew that Niki was good, we knew that Stybar was good and Tom, better than last week. Unfortunately, we were not in the race, we were never in the breakaway and we weren’t happy during the race… The good thing is that the bunch came back with Cancellara, we had two guys in it and all the cards to play.”

Terpstra won the Tour of Qatar and clinched the Dwars door Vlaanderen classic this year but never landed such a ‘big fish’. The closest he came in Paris-Roubaix was a third place last year to Cancellara.

“This means he’s going to be more expensive when I try to renew his contract for next year!” Lefevere said.

“He bridged the last step from a very good gregario to a guy who can win big races. That’s still a big difference between winning Waregem [Dwars], with all due respect, than winning Paris-Roubaix.”