Your drivers were not right at the front of the ramp near Milan – Sanremo. World Champion Julian Alaphilippe from Deceuninck Quick Step-Team Lefeveres, was only a disappointing 16th on Via Roma. Bora hansgrohe was able to bring three drivers into the top 20. The Very classic-Debutants Pascal Ackermann and Maximilian Schachmann finished 20th and 14th, old master Peter Sagan won another “wooden medal” with 4th place. More was not possible.
Right at the front of the virtual ramp of the singer and cycling city Sanremo Meanwhile, the racing team bosses jostled each other Patrick lefevere and Ralph Denk. Lefevere had made the serve. In Belgian media, he accused Denk of wanting to buy his racing team completely from him.
“We met at the Sheraton Hotel in Brussels. There he told me the whole story of his life, from being a little bicycle mechanic to being the manager of Bora. In between I asked: ‘Ralph, this is all very moving. But why are we here? ‘ The former little mechanic then got to the point and asked, ‘What is the price for us to take on Deceuninck Quick Step?‘”
The struggle for the super talents
When the sports show Denk confronts it after crossing the finish line in Sanremo, the Bora boss says angrily: “That’s just ridiculous. What should I do with a second team? I already have one. And after FIA– Regulations, it would not even be allowed to have two racing teams. “
Denk does not deny the meeting mentioned by Lefevere. But it’s not about the racing team itself, but about the professional cyclist Remco Evenepoel went. He stands by Deceuninck Quick Step under contract, and is, if you want to believe the fanatics in Belgium, a kind of mixture Tour de France-Young star Tadej Pogacar and the terrain heroes Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel.
Was it about Evenepoel – or about the whole team?
You can also say something like the new one Eddy Merckx – with the difference that Evenepoel can also play football – good enough at least for the junior teams. “Everyone is interested in Remco“, thinks.”Because Patrick discovered him and also has a contract with him, I went to see him. I even took the polite route and didn’t run straight to Remco“, the racing team manager from Bavaria emphasizes his behavior, in his eyes impeccable.”Patrick then said: He doesn’t have any sponsors for next year. But he has an option for Remco and for other racers as well. And that would be debatable in the event that he no longer has a team.“
According to Denk’s memory of the conversation, it was not about buying an entire team. Should Lefevere not be able to find new team sponsors, he would have mutated into a kind of agent through those drivers who are directly contractually bound to him. It would have been about money, but possibly also about the role the Belgian might play in such a newly formed team.
Racing team mergers are not new territory
Associations of racing teams are particularly common in professional cycling if the one who has a license from the World Cycling Association FIA owns, runs out of money – and someone else has the money, but not yet the license or not the drivers. Israel Start Up Nation, the new racing team from Tour de France– All-time winner Chris Froome so came about. His new boss, the Canadian-Israeli investor Sylvan Adams, acquired the Katyusha license when Moscow’s ambition to play a major role in world cycling suddenly faded.
Think taunts back: “Maybe he’s too old”
Such conversations usually take place without media presence. In the event of Lefeveres one can assume that he wanted to lure his financiers out of cover with the abuse. “As I heard, he has now also found the sponsors, which is good. Every sponsor is good for cycling“said Denk.
When “little gentleman-like“ he described the outbreak anyway, and then poked in turn: “Maybe he’s too old.”
Agents, petrodollars – cycling in the footsteps of football
One could dismiss the episode as a cockfight between two alpha males in the testosterone sport of road cycling. But it can also be interpreted as an indication of a change of time. For a long time, contracts in cycling were closed with a handshake – and mostly kept. The more money came into play, the more important the role of driver agents became. Some of them quickly realized – just like in football – that they can earn more money themselves if their drivers change earlier and they then get a higher salary from their new employer.
Pressure from the surrounding area should, for example, also apply to the premature termination of the contract between the Swiss super talent Marc Hirschi and the German racing team Sunweb, now DSM, have played a role. The winner of the semi-classic Walloon Arrow now drives in the Tourieger team Pogacar. This is financed by petrodollars from the United Arab Emirates. This is becoming more and more similar to the way the industry works in football. Curious that the current episode concerns a previous talent in football.
Stand: 21.03.2021, 11:45
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