Times are tough for the best team in the world. After calamitous classic Flanders and a barely better start for the Ardennes, imagining a victory for the Belgian team on Sunday over Liège-Bastogne-Liège would be like believing in a miracle. A concept to which its historic manager, Patrick Lefévère, never really adhered. A father who left too early and a vague history of priests not a fan of his passion for cycling led him to abandon the seminary of Roeselare, 50 terminals north of Roubaix, and his faith with it at a young age.
Since then, he has found refuge in work, a more reliable value that quickly ensures a return on investment. Modest runner, he will end up winning everything in a thousand copies as sports director – except the Tour – with a management of bogeyman. “He is very good at challenging his riders, tells us Cédric Vasseur, former subordinate of the Belgian in 2006 and 2007, and now general manager at Cofidis. He practices a management based on the reaction of pride. Even if it means washing your dirty laundry in public to exacerbate egos to the extreme, often with humor, always with a sense of the formula. “It’s not always pleasant for the runners, but it has always worked”, testifies his former runner Gert Steegmans.
Among the recent examples, we note his vitriolic outing on the E3 Saxo Classic, where his best runner, Yves Lampaert, had not done better than 16th. A disappointment among many others this year. “In Waregem the lunch was delicious. That was the only good thing today, the food. I understand that we are not with the three in front [Van Aert, Van der Poel, Pogacar], which are phenomenal. But no one in the group behind them? Sorry, but it’s not the Soudal-Quick-Step. In the bus, I gave my opinion, as always, without shouting. Then I heard from Kasper Asgreen – I did my best – from Florian Sénéchal – I fell – from Julian Alaphilippe – I woke up with a stomach ache and a small fever. How do you want me to answer that? If you have a fever, you shouldn’t start. »
The obsession with the immediate result can sometimes turn into ingratitude, even outings as scandalous as on his former rider, Sam Bennett, at the height of a conflict dating from 2021. And there, it is immediately less funny.
“Sam Bennett is the height of mental weakness,” Lefévère said at the time. Leaving Bora and then complaining to everyone about how he would have been bullied and mistreated there, becoming almost broken and depressed, only to come back fourteen months later… It’s the same as women who still return home after domestic violence. “A nauseating protrusion came to sanction a pseudo-false injury to the knee of the sprinter, accused of fleeing his responsibilities.
The Alaphilippe case, far from being an exception
They are some to have gone from everything to nothing in the eyes of the great raïs. Since he has been doing less well, Julian Alaphilippe is no longer the winner of Milan-San-Remo, Strade Bianche, three times winner of the Flèche Wallonne, six times stage winner on the Tour de France, yellow jersey during two weeks… So many results obtained before his contract extension, in the spring of 2021. The table has been erased and now Alaph is reduced to the rank of leader in need of victories. “We can say fortunately that he became twice world champion, tackled Lefévère at the microphone of RMC this week. Apart from that, he won the first stage of the Tour and the yellow jersey. I understand that the French teams are excited about it, but not me. »
Absent from the Amstel Gold Race and the Flèche Wallonne, his favorite race, due to a fall on the Tour of Flanders, Julian Alaphilippe returns on Sunday to the roads he left last year with a pneumothorax, broken ribs and a fractured shoulder blade. He also left his mojo there – retirement in the Vuelta – and a certain enthusiasm for his machine, whatever his partner, Marion Rousse, says: “A lot of people would have been disillusioned. But he remains serious and focused. He impresses me more than when he won ten races a year. Lefévère rather thinks the opposite.
Alaph has every interest in rekindling the fire that once burned within him. He should have peace in Liège, but his general manager has set big end-of-season goals, prior to a further extension of the Frenchman at Quick-Step (his contract expires in 2024). “Let’s imagine that he wins two or three stages in the Tour de France and that he wears the yellow jersey for 10 days, that becomes another story. And if he wins the world championship and the Tour of Lombardy, that’s another story. »
“It’s a bit like PSG”
There is a tacit agreement between the manager and his riders: you hit the mark, you stay. No results? No new contract. Gert Steegmans: “It’s a bit like PSG, if you play there, you have to be super good, because you know there are people on the bench who can replace you. And there is no need for Lefévère to say it. The riders knew that to be on the team you had to have the best results. »
For example, we remember a conversation with Florian Sénéchal, in the midst of the Covid crisis. So at the end of the contract, he feared that a postponement of Paris-Roubaix would prevent him from proving his worth and therefore from having a chance to negotiate an extension. “If it’s cancelled, what do I say to Patrick Lefévère? “I was unlucky, what do we do?”
The character’s intransigence is due as much to the stereotype of the leader eager for victories as to the financial resources of his team, which must be optimized at all costs. Without passing the Soudal-Quick-Step for Intermarché-Wanty, the Belgian formation does not have the unlimited budget of Ineos, UAE or Jumbo-Visma.
He thinks more like a businessman than a sentimental manager, believes Cédric Vasseur. If he puts a ticket on the table for results that don’t happen, he loses money. He, like all the other managers, must seek funding to get millions of euros out. If he puts out a million for a runner, he expects to have a million entries on investment. It’s a win-win. »
We better understand the punchline on Alaphilippe: “I like him, like everyone else. How can you not love Julian? But I have to be realistic, it eats up a big chunk of my budget. »
The Evenepoel revolution and the Tour de France objective
Budget that Patrick Lefévère now intends to spread out properly between riders capable of hitting one-day races, and his Remco Evenepoel project which should lead the young rider and his mentor hand in hand towards a final victory in the Tour de France. A first step has been taken with the Vuelta 2022. The ephemeral footballer will aim for the Giro this year and, in the event of victory, will probably tackle the Grande Boucle in 2024.
Evenepoel’s Tour of Italy is the last hope of seeing a ray of sunshine pierce the gray sky of the Quick-Step. But it will not be enough to erase the affront of the Flandrian classics. “I think that Patrick Lefévère is having a rather bad time during this period”, confides his former rider Gert Steegmans. Vasseur completes: “I don’t think he expected to be overtaken in this way on his field. Because the Flandrian classics are his playground, it belongs to him. But on the other hand, I see him very calm. I think he is already working on 2024. I don’t see Patrick agreeing to relive the same Flandriennes season. »
To hear them speak, one would think Lefevere young revenge. He is 68 years old. But if he swears to dream of a consulting position within Soudal-Quick-Step, more peaceful and in keeping with his age, his actions betray an addiction to the field and an energy that neither time nor cancer, nor did the suspicions of doping around his team ever manage to erode. Last year, he re-signed for five years with the Wolfpack. Again on Wednesday, he was present on the Flèche Wallonne. “As long as he is there, it means that he has not yet found someone up to his experience to take up the torch, tries Cédric Vasseur. It is he who will designate his successor. Until the end, he will decide everything.