Cycling: the new life of Soudal Quick-Step, without Lefevere or Alaphilippe

Historical formation of the peloton, the Soudal Quick-Step team approaches 2025 in new clothes after the departures of the founding boss Patrick Lefevere and Julian Alaphilippe, also deprived for a few more months of its star Remco Evenepoel.

Cycling monument, « Watch Pat »who has just celebrated his 70th birthday, appeared very moved during the team presentation on Thursday in sunny Calpe, on the Spanish Costa Blanca, when he was offered, as a tribute, a bicycle with his main feats of arms inscribed on the frame.

“This is the first bike I received from the team, and probably also the last, but it’s the most beautiful”he reacted before encouraging his ex-runners to do “even better” in 2025 than during the last financial year, completed with 34 victories.

“We had to convince him to come. Until last night he didn’t want to, he told me: +it’s your time+. I hope he liked it »confided a little later the new boss, Jürgen Foré, 54 years old, son of Noël, winner of Paris-Roubaix in 1959, who claims a style “direct but more discreet” than the thunderous Lefevere.

With the departure of Lefevere, who founded the team in 2003, a big page is turning for Soudal Quick-Step, which has become one of the most powerful teams in the peloton, scoring nearly 1,000 victories under his leadership, including 22 Monuments, the Vuelta in 2022 thanks to Remco Evenepoel and 124 stages of a grand Tour.

Alaphilippe “leaves a big void”

“We have solid foundations on which to build and continue Patrick’s work”underlined his successor who intends to confirm the new orientation of the team focused on the grand Tours while finding some punch on the classics after a Paris-Roubaix “dramatic” last year.

But Lefevere is not the only one to have left the team this winter. Two emblematic riders, the Dane Kasper Asgreen, former winner of the Tour of Flanders, and especially the former double world champion Julian Alaphilippe, have joined a new structure.

“Julian’s departure leaves a big void in the team. Everyone still talks about him here. Julian did like this, Julian did like that”notes Valentin Paret-Peintre, French recruit.

Paul Magnier, another French rider on the team and a big promise at 20, “often shared a room last season with Julian” which helped him win three stages of the Tour of Britain.

“I will miss him very much. He is a very great runner, but also a person with a very big heart”he said.

“Everyone loves Julian, it wasn’t easy to say goodbye to him”summarized Jürgen Foré. “We were on the same flight as him to come here and everyone had a +hug+”he added, while Alaphilippe is also training nearby with his new team Tudor.

Evenepoel is patient

The other big absentee on Thursday in Calpe, but still in the team however, was none other than Remco Evenepoel.

Seriously injured in December when he hit the door of a Belgian Post car, the Flemish prodigy was only present via a video message.

He sent him into the rain, from inside his car parked in the parking lot of Herentals hospital in Belgium, where he was undergoing check-ups, after suffering multiple fractures, contusions to his lungs and a dislocation of the right clavicle with tearing of the ligaments.

“The results are quite good. We will finally be able to start rehabilitation, that’s good news”announced the double Olympic champion in the evening during a press videoconference with some media including AFP.

He will now be able to resume training on rollers on Saturday, “very slowly at first”. The return to road training is planned for February 3 or 4, a little over two months before the first race, the Flèche Brabançonne (April 18), before moving on to the other Ardennes classics.

“I don’t know in what form I will be in the Ardennes but the goal is to be at 200% before the Tour (de France), he said. If all goes well, I have almost no doubt, or even no doubt, that I will be in great shape at the start of the Tour.” July 5.