Patrick Lefevere: ‘When the season is over for the riders, then my season starts’

Recently, Soudal-Quick Step found themselves facing a shortage of riders for the 2024 season. However, team manager Patrick Lefevere took proactive measures to address the situation, according to an interview with Sporza.

“On Sunday, a new rider signed with us,” the Belgian explained. “But I’ll keep his name to myself for now. When the season is over for the riders, then my season starts.”

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Patrick Lefevere has not been able to relax since news of the controversial Jumbo-Visma takeover was kiboshed. “I sometimes look at everyone’s Instagram with envious eyes. I see one rider on vacation doing everything I might not be able to do at my age, such as jet skiing. Then I’m here in Belgium, working away.”

The reason for his stressful autumn was that his team only had 26 riders. WorldTour teams need 27.

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“It had escaped my notice that all the managers who were already pushing me could see on a certain site in December last year that we were still one rider short. I’ve been bombarded with requests in recent weeks,” Lefevere chuckles.

But thankfully, he sorted that so the team is complete and ready for 2024, although who it is has not been made public yet.

“I’m going to keep the name of that rider to myself for now. Because I don’t know if the boy himself has communicated it to his team this year,” he added. “In any case, he was at the end of his contract with that team.”