QuickStep-AlphaVinyl team manager has opted to use a carrot-and-stick approach to motivating his team leaders, encouraging Remco Evenepoel to aim high in the Grand Tours, while taking a more critical approach with Julian Alaphilippe after his injury-hit 2022 season.
Lefevere spent the week in Calpe, Spain at the QuickStep-AlphaVinyl training camp, as his riders and staff began to work hard for the rapidly-approaching new season.
The Belgian team will be known as Soudal-QuickStep in 2023, with the sponsor changes lifting the team’s budget but also the expectations. Evenepoel won Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Vuelta a España and the world title but Lefevere’s squad struggled in the cobbled Classics and Alaphilippe missed the Tour de France after his high-speed Liège-Bastogne-Liège crash.
Lefevere is not known for his diplomacy and during a long interview with Belgian newspaper La Dernière Heure, he used some blunt words to motivate Alaphilippe and kinder words to encourage Evenepoel.
Alaphilippe won the world title in 2020 and 2021 but described 2022 as his hardest season of his career to Cyclingnews.
He started the year chasing form after missing a key training camp due to a nasty cold. Then he flipped over his bike in the crosswinds at Strade Bianche, which hindered his build up towards the Ardennes Classics. He was then caught-up in a terrible high-speed crash at Liège-Bastogne-Liège. Two broken ribs, a broken scapula and a punctured lung forced him to miss the Tour de France and he also crashed out of the Vuelta a España.
Lefevere knows all of that. He is confident Alaphilippe can go well in the spring Classics but expects a lot from the French rider in 2023.
“I want him to recover. He owes me revenge. Julian has a champion’s salary, but he must confirm that he still is a champion,” Lefevere said, firmly using his words as a motivational stick.
“That he is no longer world champion, I don’t care, but in recent years he hasn’t won much. Yes, he had a lot of bad luck, but it’s always the same ones who are lucky and the same ones who have bad luck…”
Lefevere was more careful when speaking about Evenepoel. The Belgian has already confirmed he will target the Giro d’Italia in 2023, with a shot at the Tour delayed until 2024.
“We don’t want to cut corners with Remco, and neither does he. The goal is that he can, one day, play the leading roles in the Tour de France, but we have always said that he would first…
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