Sep Vanmarcke

Sep Vanmarcke (born 27 July 1988) is a Belgian former professional road racing cyclist, who rode professionally between 2008 and 2023 for, , , (over two spells), and , before being forced to retire from the sport for medical reasons. During his professional career, Vanmarcke took nine victories, including the 2012 Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, the 2019 Bretagne Classic Ouest-France and the 2022 Maryland Cycling Classic one-day races.

Following his retirement, Vanmarcke moved into a directeur sportif role with his final professional team,.

Career
Vanmarcke was born in Kortrijk, and started his career at in 2008. He finished on the podium at the Kattekoers in consecutive years, finishing second in 2008 – behind his brother Ken – and third in 2009, and he also won a stage of the 2009 Tour du Haut-Anjou.

Vanmarcke moved to midway through the 2009 season, recording top-ten finishes at the Sparkassen Giro Bochum – eighth on his début with the team – and the Kampioenschap van Vlaanderen (sixth). In 2010, Vanmarcke won the mountains classification at the Four Days of Dunkirk, and recorded second-place finishes at Gent–Wevelgem, and the Circuit Franco-Belge.

Garmin–Cervélo (2011–2012)
Having moved to for the 2011 season, Vanmarcke took the biggest win of his career to that point at the 2012 Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, attacking fiercely twice. The first attack came on the Molenberg climb with 37 km remaining, thinning the field, and he attacked again on the 'Lange Munte' cobbled section to reduce the lead group to only two competitors, Juan Antonio Flecha and Tom Boonen ; he outsprinted them to claim the victory. Also in the first half of the year, Vanmarcke recorded further top-ten finishes at Dwars door Vlaanderen (seventh), E3 Harelbeke (fifth), and the Rogaland GP (third).

Blanco Pro Cycling (2013–2016)
In August 2012, Vanmarcke announced his departure from, Having been linked with both and  during the season,  Vanmarcke joined the former  team in October 2012, which was later renamed as.

2013
In the first part of 2013, Vanmarcke put his focus on the Classics, but he injured his knee in a crash at Tirreno–Adriatico, which effected his preparation for the first important one-day races of the season. He nonetheless participated in the Tour of Flanders, finishing 3 minutes in arrears of race winner Fabian Cancellara. A week later, he finished second to Cancellara in Paris–Roubaix; having escaped with Stijn Vandenbergh with around 30 km remaining, they were joined later on by Cancellara and Zdeněk Štybar. On the Carrefour de l'Arbre cobbled section, Štybar and Vandenbergh were dispatched one-by-one as they collided with spectators. Vanmarcke lost the 2-man sprint contested at the Roubaix Velodrome and was emotional afterwards, since he had come so close to victory. Vanmarcke took his first win for the team at September's Grand Prix Impanis-Van Petegem, beating Pieter Weening in a two-up finish in Haacht; the week prior, Vanmarcke had lost out to Bert De Backer in a three-up finish at the Grote Prijs Jef Scherens in Leuven.

2014
Vanmarcke placed highly in the 2014 season-opening Belgian cycling races with fourth place in Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and third in Kuurne–Brussels–Kuurne the following day, before further top-five finishes in E3 Harelbeke (fifth) and Gent–Wevelgem (fourth). In the Tour of Flanders, Vanmarcke was the only rider able to follow Fabian Cancellara's attack on the final climb of the Oude Kwaremont. The pair caught up with the two earlier escapees, Stijn Vandenbergh and Greg Van Avermaet, and the race came down to a sprint between the four, with Cancellara taking the win ahead of Van Avermaet and Vanmarcke. The following weekend, Vanmarcke was again amongst the lead group at Paris–Roubaix, finishing fourth behind solo winner Niki Terpstra. Later in the season, he added stage victories at the Tour of Norway and the Tour of Alberta, finishing ninth overall at the latter race.

2015–2016
Vanmarcke failed to score a top-ten finish at any of the cycling monuments in the 2015 season but placed highly at February's Omloop Het Nieuwsblad – finishing fifth despite two punctures – and the March races Strade Bianche (fourth), E3 Harelbeke (fifth), and Gent–Wevelgem (sixth). He took further fourth-place finishes later in the season, at both the RideLondon–Surrey Classic and the Tour du Poitou-Charentes.

Having finished eighth at the 2016 E3 Harelbeke, Vanmarcke took a runner-up finish at Gent–Wevelgem for the second time in his career; he attacked with Peter Sagan and Fabian Cancellara on the Kemmelberg, and having caught the leader Vyacheslav Kuznetsov, the quartet contested the honours in a sprint finish – Sagan and Vanmarcke ultimately got the better of Kuznetsov, with Vanmarcke being "pleased" with his result. Over the following two weekends, Vanmarcke finished third at the Tour of Flanders – being beaten by Sagan and Cancellara, after suffering from cramps on the Paterberg – and fourth at Paris–Roubaix, having featured in the race-defining breaks at both races. He later won June's Ster ZLM Toer for his first stage race victory; he won the penultimate stage of the race into La Gileppe in a two-up sprint against Wout van Aert to take the race lead, and ultimately won the race by six seconds ahead of Sean De Bie.

Cannondale–Drapac (2017–2020)
In August 2016, it was announced that Vanmarcke was to rejoin on an initial two-year contract from the 2017 season, having rode for the team in 2011 and 2012 when it was known as. Having started his 2017 season in Iberia with appearances at the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana – where he crashed twice – and the Volta ao Algarve, Vanmarcke finished third at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, losing out in a sprint finish against Greg Van Avermaet and Peter Sagan, having forced the lead move on the final ascent of the Molenberg climb. He then endured crashes at both Strade Bianche and the Tour of Flanders, suffering a broken finger at the latter. During the summer, Vanmarcke finished second to Oliver Naesen at the Belgian National Road Race Championships, won the points classification at the Tour of Austria – while also leading the race overall for three days – and finished fourth at the RideLondon–Surrey Classic. Later in the season, he finished fourth at the Bretagne Classic Ouest-France, and took top-ten finishes in both Laurentian classics, with eighth in the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec and tenth in the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal.

Just as was the case in 2017, Vanmarcke's first podium of the 2018 season came with a third-place finish at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad; he had been part of a small group in the closing kilometres, unsuccessfully tried to chase down the race-winning solo attack by Michael Valgren, and was out-sprinted for second place by Łukasz Wiśniowski. Later in the spring, Vanmarcke finished in seventh place at E3 Harelbeke – despite crashing in the first half of the race – and another third-place finish, coming at a wet Dwars door Vlaanderen. These results led Vanmarcke to believe that he was a contender for the Tour of Flanders, to be held the following weekend; however, he finished outside the top ten due to several crashes and a puncture. In between, he extended his contract with until the end of the 2020 season. Over the remainder of the season, Vanmarcke took only one further top-five result, with a fifth-place finish coming at the Belgian National Road Race Championships in June.

Vanmarcke started the 2019 season with a block of racing in France, finishing fifth overall at the Étoile de Bessèges, before winning the opening stage of the Tour du Haut Var, recording his first victory since 2016. Vanmarcke's best result from the spring classics was a fourth-place finish at Paris–Roubaix, and he did not reach the podium again until his victory at September's Bretagne Classic Ouest-France, where he was part of a lead group – along with Tiesj Benoot and Jack Haig – that formed with 21 km remaining, before Vanmarcke made a solo attack in the final kilometre for his first UCI World Tour victory. He finished his season with two further top-ten finishes at the Trofeo Matteotti (sixth) and the Gran Premio Bruno Beghelli (ninth). The following year, and in a season disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Vanmarcke failed to record any top-ten overall finishes.

Israel Start-Up Nation (2021–2023)
Despite being offered a new contract by, Vanmarcke elected to leave the team and signed a three-year contract, from 2021, with in October 2020.

For the third time in five years, Vanmarcke finished in third place at the 2021 Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in February, losing out in the sprint finish to Davide Ballerini and Jake Stewart. Over the following couple of months, Vanmarcke finished fourth at Le Samyn (again as part of the lead group), and then finished fifth at the Tour of Flanders. In July, Vanmarcke finished second overall to Diego Ulissi at the Settimana Ciclistica Italiana held on Sardinia; he finished third on three of the race's five stages. At the 2022 Tour de la Provence, Vanmarcke finished second on the second stage, only being beaten by Elia Viviani in the group sprint in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. Later in the season, Vanmarcke won the inaugural Maryland Cycling Classic from a group of five riders in Baltimore, his first victory in three years. In 2023, Vanmarcke recorded top-ten finishes at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad (tenth) and the Nokere Koerse (sixth), before a third-place finish at Gent–Wevelgem – where he led home a small group of riders almost two minutes down on the top two in the race, Christophe Laporte and Wout van Aert.

Retirement, directeur sportif
On 7 July 2023, Vanmarcke announced his retirement from cycling with immediate effect, due to cardiac issues. The following month, announced that Vanmarcke would join the team's staff as a directeur sportif from the 2024 season.

Major results
Source:


 * 2006
 * 4th Road race, National Junior Road Championships


 * 2007
 * 3rd Ronde Van Vlaanderen Beloften
 * 6th Circuit de Wallonie


 * 2008
 * 2nd Kattekoers
 * 6th La Côte Picarde
 * 8th Ronde Van Vlaanderen Beloften


 * 2009
 * 3rd Kattekoers
 * 3rd La Côte Picarde
 * 4th Overall Tour du Haut-Anjou
 * 1st Stage 1
 * 5th Ronde Van Vlaanderen Beloften
 * 6th Kampioenschap van Vlaanderen
 * 8th Sparkassen Giro Bochum


 * 2010
 * 1st Jersey polkadot.svg Mountains classification, Four Days of Dunkirk
 * 2nd Overall Circuit Franco-Belge
 * 2nd Gent–Wevelgem
 * 3rd Ronde van het Groene Hart
 * 8th Grand Prix de Wallonie
 * 9th Paris–Camembert


 * 2011
 * 4th E3 Prijs Vlaanderen


 * 2012
 * 1st Omloop Het Nieuwsblad
 * 3rd Rogaland GP
 * 5th E3 Harelbeke
 * 7th Dwars door Vlaanderen


 * 2013
 * 1st Grand Prix Impanis-Van Petegem
 * 1st Grote Prijs Wase Polders
 * 2nd Paris–Roubaix
 * 2nd Grote Prijs Jef Scherens
 * 5th Road race, National Road Championships
 * 5th Overall Tour des Fjords
 * 5th Rund um Köln


 * 2014
 * 1st Stage 3 Tour of Norway
 * 3rd Kuurne–Brussels–Kuurne
 * 3rd Tour of Flanders
 * 4th Omloop Het Nieuwsblad
 * 4th Gent–Wevelgem
 * 4th Paris–Roubaix
 * 5th E3 Harelbeke
 * 5th Binche–Chimay–Binche
 * 7th Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec
 * 9th Overall Tour of Alberta
 * 1st Stage 3


 * 2015
 * 4th Overall Tour du Poitou-Charentes
 * 4th Strade Bianche
 * 4th London–Surrey Classic
 * 5th Omloop Het Nieuwsblad
 * 5th E3 Harelbeke
 * 6th Gent–Wevelgem
 * 7th Münsterland Giro


 * 2016
 * 1st Jersey yellow.svg Overall Ster ZLM Toer
 * 1st Stage 4
 * 2nd Gent–Wevelgem
 * 3rd Tour of Flanders
 * 4th Paris–Roubaix
 * 5th Time trial, National Road Championships
 * 8th E3 Harelbeke
 * 9th Overall Tour du Poitou Charentes


 * 2017
 * 1st Jersey green 2.svg Points classification, Tour of Austria
 * 2nd Road race, National Road Championships
 * 3rd Omloop Het Nieuwsblad
 * 4th Bretagne Classic Ouest-France
 * 4th London–Surrey Classic
 * 8th Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec
 * 10th Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal


 * 2018
 * 3rd Omloop Het Nieuwsblad
 * 3rd Dwars door Vlaanderen
 * 5th Road race, National Road Championships
 * 6th Paris–Roubaix
 * 7th E3 Harelbeke
 * 7th Paris–Tours


 * 2019
 * 1st Bretagne Classic Ouest-France
 * 1st Stage 1 Tour du Haut Var
 * 4th Paris–Roubaix
 * 5th Overall Étoile de Bessèges
 * 6th Trofeo Matteotti
 * 9th Gran Premio Bruno Beghelli


 * 2021
 * 2nd Overall Settimana Ciclistica Italiana
 * 3rd Omloop Het Nieuwsblad
 * 4th Le Samyn
 * 5th Tour of Flanders


 * 2022
 * 1st Maryland Cycling Classic
 * 8th Grote Prijs Marcel Kint


 * 2023
 * 3rd Gent–Wevelgem
 * 6th Nokere Koerse
 * 10th Omloop Het Nieuwsblad