{"id":4774,"date":"2023-05-10T11:32:46","date_gmt":"2023-05-10T09:32:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/uk\/?p=4774"},"modified":"2023-05-11T11:35:47","modified_gmt":"2023-05-11T09:35:47","slug":"soudal-quick-step-on-the-wings-of-evenepoel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/uk\/2023\/05\/10\/soudal-quick-step-on-the-wings-of-evenepoel\/","title":{"rendered":"Soudal\u2013Quick-Step: On the Wings of Evenepoel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Outspoken, adj., “Frank and unreserved in speech\u201d, like Patrick Levefere, the general manager of the UCI World Team Soudal\u2013Quick-Step. According to Cycling Ranking,<\/a> he is the most successful team general manager in road racing history, so he has earned the right to be outspoken. And he rarely lets an opportunity to speak his mind go by. Most recently, he trained his sights on the two-time world champion Julian Alaphillipe, a French Soudal\u2013Quick-Step rider who has been struggling with injuries for some time.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cFortunately he has become world champion twice,\u201d the 68-year-old Belgian said.<\/a> \u201cIn addition, he won the opening stage of the Tour in 2021 and wore the yellow [jersey]. I understand that French teams are satisfied with that, but I am not. Just like everyone else, I love Julian. How can you not love him? But I also have to be realistic: he takes a big bite out of my budget. I want to see results.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lefevere was speaking as his team was suffering through a dismal spring Classics season. Until Remco Evenepoel<\/a> won Li\u00e8ge-Bastogne-Li\u00e8ge, they had been totally shut out in this year\u2019s spring Classics. The Tour of Flanders had been Alaphilippe\u2019s target, but he crashed heavily in the race. And when no Soudal\u2013Quick-Step rider could finish better than a dismal 16th in the E3 Saxo Bank Classic, Lefevere again did not mince his words.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the E3 Classic I had a tasty lunch in restaurant Castor in Waregem, two Michelin stars,\u201d he wrote in his column in Het Nieuwsblad. \u201cWith that we have had everything that was good yesterday: the food. The performance of the team was below par. Furthermore, I did not dare to look.”<\/p>\n

\"Patrick<\/a>
Soudal Quick-Step CEO Patrick Lefevere is seen at the second stage of the 2023 Giro D’Italia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But Lefevere is certainly in a better mood now because in the 23-year-old Evenepoel he has one of the best riders in the world, and one who \u2013 if he improves his climbing ability \u2013 will eventually challenge Tadej Poga\u010dar in the Tour de France. But Soudal\u2013Quick-Step is hardly a one-man team. In the Dane Kasper Asgreen they have a very good climber, a good ITT rider and a past spring Classics winner, as he won the Tour of Flanders and the E3 Saxo Bank Classic in 2021. The 26-year-old Fabio Jakobsen is among the best sprinters on the road, having won five Vuelta stages and the Vuelta Green Jersey in 2021.<\/a> And the promising 22-year-old Ethan Vernon has already won a stage in the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya and in the Tour de Romandie. And, of course, there is Alaphilippe, who on his day and when healthy is one of the fiercest competitor in the peloton.<\/p>\n

But Lefevere knows that Evenepoel is the team\u2019s present and future star, and he is being very canny in how he manages the young cycling prodigy\u2019s career. It is no accident that Evenepoel has not yet faced Poga\u010dar in the Tour. Lefevere knows that, at this stage of his development, he cannot match the Slovenian in the mountains. So Evenepoel entered the Vuelta last year, and won, and he is the favourite to win this year\u2019s Giro. The eagerly anticipated duel between Evenepoel and Poga\u010dar in the Li\u00e8ge-Bastogne-Li\u00e8ge came to nothing when the UAE Team Emirates leader crashed and broke his wrist early in the race. Evenepoel\u2019s dominating victory in that race did nothing to hurt his reputation. Quite the contrary. Eventually, Evenepoel will face Poga\u010dar in the Tour or another Grand Tour, and when he does, it will be because Lefevere believes he can win.<\/p>\n

However, it\u2019s risky to put so many of your eggs in one basket, and Lefevere knows it. Evenepoel has been fortunate so far in that he has avoided severe injuries and illness and has therefore missed little training or racing time. That\u2019s why the second-most important riders in Lefevere\u2019s stable are probably those tasked with protecting their leader from race mishaps. That was apparent near the end of the Giro\u2019s second stage when, with 3.4km to go in the stage, Soudal\u2013Quick-Step\u2019s David Ballerini and the Alpecin-Deceuninck sprinter Kaden Groves bumped shoulders as the latter was trying to get into position for the sprint. That led to a crash that took down Mark Cavendish<\/a> and caused several GC competitors to lose valuable seconds in the resulting bottleneck.<\/p>\n

If he was watching that incident, Lefevere must have been holding his breath \u2013 for once.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Outspoken, adj., “Frank and unreserved in speech\u201d, like Patrick Levefere, the general manager of the UCI World Team Soudal\u2013Quick-Step. 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