Quick-Step Floors the Tour de France, taking two stage wins. Bettini defended his world championship in Stuttgart. In 2008 Gert Steegmans took the final stage of the 2008 Tour de France on the Champs-Élysées. Paolo Bettini retired after the world championship in Varese. In both 2008 and 2009 Stijn Devolder took the Tour of Flanders and Tom Boonen, Paris–Roubaix. After two seasons of disappointment, a resurgent Omega Pharma–Quick-Step and Tom Boonen, took four major Spring classics victories, including the four cobblestone courses E3 Harelbeke, Gent–Wevelgem, Tour of Flanders, Paris–Roubaix. In October 2012, the team fired their veteran rider Levi Leipheimer after he
Sport in Belgium 1999 and Philippe Gilbert in 2011. Among the best-known road races in Belgium are two out of the five monuments of cycling: the Tour of Flanders and Liège–Bastogne–Liège. Other classic one day races in Belgium include La Flèche Wallonne, E3 Harelbeke and Gent–Wevelgem, all part of the UCI World Tour, as well as Paris–Brussels, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Kuurne–Brussels–Kuurne, Grand Prix de Wallonie and Dwars door Vlaanderen. The best-known stage-races in Belgium are the Tour of Benelux, created in 2005, and the Tour of Belgium. Belgium has currently two professional cycling teams competing in the UCI ProTour: Etixx-Quick Step and Lotto-Soudal.