Should Patrick Lefevere swallow his pride etc.?
Well he just has.
He steps down at the end of the year.
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Not a surprise really. He's been talking about it for the past few years and will turn 70 next month.
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He should probably be first, but DB was so incredibly successful with Sky, that putting DB first seems justified. Could PL have done the same with Sky's budget?
Winning GT's seems to be less about money and more about finding the (dark horse) talent, that others overlook or are not able to sign. At some point Froome, Roglic, Pogacar & Vingegaard must have been available to every team to sign without breaking the bank. Once you have the rider, the money helps.
PTP Champion 2019, 2022 & 20232 -
Well yeah, but winning the Tour with Wiggins, Froome, Thomas and Bernal, as well as the Giro with Froome, Tao and Bernal and the Vuelta twice with Froome.... That's not just unearthing hidden talent
And was he really influential? Incredibly successful, yes, swung his weight about a bit, yes, but did he innovate or change anything (genuinely asking here, I can't think of anything, but then I skipped the first ten years of the millenia...)?
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I think he completely changed the landscape of the sport; in aerodynamics, in nutrition, in training. Sky invested in all of those well before anyone else. Now every team does it.
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I think he meant PL?
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One less dinosaur in the sport.
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Ah yes.
One area where I think Leferve was a bit of a trailblazer, was creating a successful multi-national team. Mapei were arguably the first team to recruit riders from lots of different countries and be successful.
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It's probably easier to pinpoint changes DB made to further success than what PL did. However, the amount of wins every single year for such an extended period of time should give enough grounds for others to learn from, hence should be influential in it's own right. I would say DB achieved a lot with a tremendous budget, PL overachieved with what he was given.
PTP Champion 2019, 2022 & 20231 -
I guess you could say he was to classics in the 00s what SDB was to GTs, but then quickstep grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory was almost a cliche at points. Standard at G-W being the peak of that trough...
You could argue that they had some bloke called Cancellara to race against but then Froome had some guy called Contador who he managed to beat more often that not regardless.
We're in danger of confusing passion with incompetence
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They got Niki Terpstra 1 PR & 1 RVV though. Not that Terpstra wasn't very good, but that was the other side of the Stannard G-W coin.
PTP Champion 2019, 2022 & 20230 -
QS only got to lose so many finishes because they were there to compete them though. Part of the trick with the classics is buying as many tickets to the lottery as possible, and QS had a seemingly endless supply.
PL's other achievement - and one that shouldn't be overlooked - was in marketing his teams, and especially latterly giving them the image of the slightly dashing antithesis of Sky. I'm pretty sure that helped with recruitment as much as sponsorship. Heck, it gave QS an identity that survived all the changes in sponsorship. Hiring Cavendish back was an act of genuine romanticism in a sport that likes to pretend it still has some, and although it paid back in spades just the decision alone made headlines and emphasised their (public facing, at least) approach to the sport.
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Let's not forget that Cavendish's wages were paid by a personal sponsor on his return to the team.
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Sure, it was maybe a free hit financially, but it could have blown up in his face by messing with the team dynamics, planning race programmes etc
A more hard-nosed team wouldn't have found a slot.
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I think that given Lefevere had to kneecap Bennett to get Cav onto the Tour it probably did bugger team dynamics up
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