Patrick Lefevere was an unexpected guest at the UAE Tour Women on Friday. He is no longer team manager of Soudal-QuickStep but was combining a holiday with a trip to see the race. He has retired and perhaps mellowed but still has opinions on the sport.
Lefevere is no stranger to controversy, especially when it comes to women's cycling. The 70-year-old Belgian once made outrageous comments about women's salaries and only avoided a fine from the UCI for comments that were ‘disparaging toward women’ by making a formal apology.
Lefevere followed the record breaking high-speed echelon second stage of the UAE Tour Women race in the AG Insurance-Soudal team car, watching Lorena Wiebes win after the stage was raced at an average speed of 48.4km/h.
"I've been to a few women's races but this was by far the hardest one I saw," Lefevere told Cyclingnews.
"There are no secrets out there, there is so much wind, either you are in the front or you are dropped. There are only two possibilities and it depends on who you are.
"It's also because the women often don't have the experience to make echelons, and it was echelons from kilometre 1 so it was good to see in the car.”
Lefevere seems genuinely impressed and wanted to put the record straight after being criticised for previously criticising women's racing.
"I want to tell the truth as I did an explanation and some English-speaking people took it the wrong way," Lefevere said.
In an interview published in the Krant van West-Vlaanderen, Lefevere was quoted as saying that the women's cycling had not yet progressed enough for all the riders to earn a minimum wage, in the same way as the men do. Those comments were deemed derogatory.
As was reported at the time, Lefevere said that he asked some riders how much they earn in a month, to which they told him between €200-250.
"I told them that this is a scandal," Lefevere explained.
"I said I wouldn't run a women's team if I had to pay that, I didn't want to be this sort of organisation, if I made a women's team I wanted to do it well.”
In 2024 AG Insurance became the sponsor and owner of the women's cycling team AG Insurance-Soudal and Lefevere is adamant that this investment in the sport has been pivotal for progress.
"I had big, big help from AG insurance, who believes in women's cycling without limits. Without their help, we would not be here today," said Lefevere.
"I brought the €250,000 budget up to €4 million. I did what I had to do, and every sponsor and this team, I brought it. So, I think everybody is happy.”
"Now we have a development team too and we tell the agents to start chasing the riders when they are younger.
"We see a lot of talent in our development team so I think the future is nice, if we can keep the money in cycling."
