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The Patrick Lefevere Depreciation Thread

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I guess that's on the sponsor: FDJ and Movistar are examples, in Belgium you have e.g. Lotto, but they aren't very ambitious it seems.

FDJ and Movistar are opposites; the FDJ teams aren't connected, the Movistar teams are. I'm talking about a situation like FDJ.

DQS sponsors are seemingly not interested (enough) in that scenario, but I also feel they could be pushed more if they had someone else than Lefevere in charge.

Hence why I'm talking about a potential future sponsor.
 
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Which team sponsors or bike manufacturers wouldn’t want it?
Fact is that Lefevere is, more than averaged, happy (or better: obsessed) with the rainbow jersey in his team.
Just look at how many times he won it with a rider from his team, or, he bought the WC to make sure he was in his team.

Last 26 years:
Olano, Museeuw, Camenzind, Vainstains, Freire (bought), 2 years in the jersey, Bettini (2 years in the jersey), Boonen, Kwiatkowski, Alaphilippe (2 years in the jersey).
All together, that's 12 years, or almost half of the last quarter century, that Lefevere had the jersey in his team.
 
Fact is that Lefevere is, more than averaged, happy (or better: obsessed) with the rainbow jersey in his team.
Just look at how many times he won it with a rider from his team, or, he bought the WC to make sure he was in his team.

Last 26 years:
Olano, Museeuw, Camenzind, Vainstains, Freire (bought), 2 years in the jersey, Bettini (2 years in the jersey), Boonen, Kwiatkowski, Alaphilippe (2 years in the jersey).
All together, that's 12 years, or almost half of the last quarter century, that Lefevere had the jersey in his team.

Nice research but it is the major one day of the race and also a good way to please sponsors. Do you really think that Ineos and Pinarello wouldn't have gone fulll PR overload if van Baarle had won?
 
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Nice research but it is the major one day of the race and also a good way to please sponsors. Do you really think that Ineos and Pinarello wouldn't have gone fulll PR overload if van Baarle had won?
Yes but why that question?
I am pointing out that Lefevere has, much more than average, a worlds RR rainbowjersey in the team, and that he is, based on what I know about him, more proud / happy with rainbow jerseys than you would expect him to be, and in terms of business, he is far less cold-blooded if he has to negotiate with a rainbow jersey holder.
 
Yes but why that question?
I am pointing out that Lefevere has, much more than average, a worlds RR rainbowjersey in the team, and that he is, based on what I know about him, more proud / happy with rainbow jerseys than you would expect him to be, and in terms of business, he is far less cold-blooded if he has to negotiate with a rainbow jersey holder.

Because his team is built on Classics riders and the biggest one day prize is the WCRR
Yes but why that question?
I am pointing out that Lefevere has, much more than average, a worlds RR rainbowjersey in the team, and that he is, based on what I know about him, more proud / happy with rainbow jerseys than you would expect him to be, and in terms of business, he is far less cold-blooded if he has to negotiate with a rainbow jersey holder.


You can knock PL for many things but his team's main aim is to win big one day races so why shouldn't he have a little fetish about the world champions jersey? It's like knocking Brailsford for collecting GT jerseys.
 
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Because his team is built on Classics riders and the biggest one day prize is the WCRR



You can knock PL for many things but his team's main aim is to win big one day races so why shouldn't he have a little fetish about the world champions jersey? It's like knocking Brailsford for collecting GT jerseys.
I’m not knocking him, I simply point out why I believe he is very happy at the moment…
I didn’t realize my comments were interpreted in any other way.
 
OK therefore Lefevere gets invited to some TV show or a magazine for an interview. He is a bit feisty in the comments sections and that is likely on why he gets invited in the first place. As such content sells. Long story short he says i have no experience in woman team and i don't want to invest money in it. Outrage happens. Asking the outraged crowd if a woman team should be made mandatory for all world tour teams. The answer from the same crowd is basically somewhere in the lines of hell no.

The main problem hence is Lefevere should put it more mildly, or better to be more politically correct, when saying buzz off?

Anyway.

I feel that all world tour teams should have both men and woman teams and all cyclists should be paid to the extent it can account for making a living. Finding excuses in 2021, especially if your budget is measured in tens of millions, well that is just lame.
 
OK therefore Lefevere gets invited to some TV show or a magazine for an interview. He is a bit feisty in the comments sections and that is likely on why he gets invited in the first place. As such content sells. Long story short he says i have no experience in woman team and i don't want to invest money in it. Outrage happens. Asking the outraged crowd if a woman team should be made mandatory for all world tour teams. The answer from the same crowd is basically somewhere in the lines of hell no.

The main problem hence is Lefevere should put it more mildly, or better to be more politically correct, when saying buzz off?

Anyway.

I feel that all world tour teams should have both men and woman teams and all cyclists should be paid to the extent it can account for making a living. Finding excuses in 2021, especially if your budget is measured in tens of millions, well that is just lame.
The problem is not what he said But how he said it. Making cycling teams owners invest into women teams smells of dictatorship to me and many teams may not be interested into doing it - they may even disband their existing teams altogether if it proves too much of a burden for them. This sort of thing must either grow organically or be assisted financially by the UCI. We can’t just demand of team owners to invest and expand. I totally support PL in that.

However - there’s zero reason to be dismissive or patronising while expressing his concerns. He is after all a public person and with that comes a certain degree of responsibility to conduct himself in an appropriate manner. This controversy is the manifestation of that responsibility…
 
OK therefore Lefevere gets invited to some TV show or a magazine for an interview. He is a bit feisty in the comments sections and that is likely on why he gets invited in the first place. As such content sells. Long story short he says i have no experience in woman team and i don't want to invest money in it. Outrage happens. Asking the outraged crowd if a woman team should be made mandatory for all world tour teams. The answer from the same crowd is basically somewhere in the lines of hell no.

The main problem hence is Lefevere should put it more mildly, or better to be more politically correct, when saying buzz off?

Anyway.

I feel that all world tour teams should have both men and woman teams and all cyclists should be paid to the extent it can account for making a living. Finding excuses in 2021, especially if your budget is measured in tens of millions, well that is just lame.

If UCI would make something like "all MWT teams are required to have a WWT development or PCT team", I bet than in less than ten years we would be talking about the winner of the Tour de France Men that same way we would talk about the Tour de France Femmes.

Professional Road Cycling has a great chance of leading the way in gender equality in team sports, for many reasons, and the timing has never been better to do it.
 
If UCI would make something like "all MWT teams are required to have a WWT development or PCT team", I bet than in less than ten years we would be talking about the winner of the Tour de France Men that same way we would talk about the Tour de France Femmes.

Professional Road Cycling has a great chance of leading the way in gender equality in team sports, for many reasons, and the timing has never been better to do it.

I don't think so. I mean women's football gets supported in many countries really hard, like in Germany, where every bigger tournament gets shown. Every league game is at least on ES player. Every club has women's teams. In schools football for girls gets encouraged, there are special training camps for girls during the holidays and so on... the public broadcaster and media make a big :dango::beercheers::lollipop: from the main events... and it does grow, it does find its viewers and players. But it's nowhere, absolutely nowhere, when compared to men's football. I saw it at my son's primary school where almost every boy played football, and almost none of the girls - but the cheerleader team, full of girls, couldn't take more members, they were full.
And even if girls want to play, more and more do, the viewers are not really there... they will watch a match of the national team, because, women or men, it's still Germany, and they identify with Germany. But there are very, very few people who regularly watch women's club football.

I'm not advocating it should be so, absolutely not. To me, the main problem remains something that I found so shocking about readers: Girls read books with male main characters and are okay with it. Boys want books with male protagonists. And fact: sports viewers are overwhelmingly men, unless it's a big partylike event, then more women are watching. They obviously identify better with men.

Another important aspect: in the families it's still mostly men who do sports. One of the first questions whenever my son meets a new adult is "and which sport do you do?" I don't think it's totally the same for girls. And while men usually continue their (often on a low level competitive sport) when they have a family, the only sport that women often do then is fitness and jogging - to keep fit, to have a nice figure and to get away from the stress of the family, to do something for themselves, so they don't take the kids with them when they do it - unlike the men, who often take at least their sons, (more and more often their girls, too) with them. (It's different if the mothers are very sportive and competitive themselves, but often they simply aren't.) So the children see: men: sports, women: only fitness.
So, most of this aspect is anecdotal, but I still think it would be confirmed statistically. Women do less sport competitively. There are nonetheless enough girls who (often grown up in very sportive families) do sport competitions, but the other consequence is that they are less inclined to watch pro sport because they don't have a connection.

So, overall, what I want to say, basically: It's not that easy. Women's sport is growing, but just because you have a major event for them and it gets shown on tv, that doesn't mean it does have a huge amount of viewers. And while women's pro sport grows, among the young less people watch pro sports in general regularly...

I think a lot should be done to make it easier for women who want a sportive career to make that possible. They should be encouraged. In cycling for instance a strong U23 class and more races for instance would help. Money support for 16-22 year olds who are on the edge of deciding what to do would help. You can still start your studies at age 22 and be successful, I don't think the lessons you learn in competitive sport at the time are wasted. Those are the things I would think about; support the ones who are on the edge, and at a younger age: the ones who are curious but don't really dare because they think it's a boy thing. Make the races more demanding and don't treat the girls and women like "that's not for you anyway, you aren't strong enough".
But forcing gender equality from above when there is no real request for it (for now at least), is not the right way I think.
Hopefully there are still enough teams and people who are interested in forming good women's teams, hopefully with female DSs and CEOs as well, and hopefully women's cycling will grow and get better.