Lefevere criticises Giro safety after crash hit opening week

The former Soudal Quick-Step boss wrote in his weekly column for Het Nieuwsblad that crashes have become a recurring theme in the opening part of the race.

“I have already shouted it a few times during this Giro: you will never learn,” Lefevere wrote.

His frustration was not aimed at bad luck, but at the details that, in his view, should have been prevented. In Bulgaria, barriers with protruding legs turned what looked like a straight approach into a bend. In Naples, potholes that were visible beforehand were still left on the route. And then, of course, there was the much discussed U-turn that interrupted the straight run in to the sprint.

Rain, Lefevere argued, can be considered bad luck. The rest cannot.

“Italian negligence is timeless,” he continued, recalling a Giro stage from the past where the first 20 or 30 riders crossed the line sliding on the ground. If his memory was correct, Paolo Bettini was among them. Riders, he said, had to wipe away the paint from sponsor names that had been painted onto the road.

According to Lefevere, the riders are always the ones who pay the price. He referred to the mass crash in stage 2, after which some riders still tried to continue days later despite having little realistic chance of doing so.

His criticism goes beyond the Giro alone. Lefevere argued that cycling still does not understand the scale of its safety problem. The UCI has introduced standard rules for riders, banned bottles in the final kilometre of sprint finishes and placed a safety manager at every race. But in practice, he said, many of those measures remain ineffective.

“Dead letter,” he wrote. “Bullshit, if you want.”

Lefevere compared cycling unfavourably with the business world, where companies do everything possible to avoid workplace accidents. Sport, he argued, is still too casual, even though it is sponsored by those same companies.

He also pointed back to SafeR, the safety initiative launched during his time in the sport with Richard Plugge and others. But according to Lefevere, the organisation has since become too large and too slow, with too many committees and stakeholders involved.

The result, in his view, is paralysis.

“Today, one more committee is making sure nothing happens,” he wrote. “The result is there for everyone to see every day in the Giro.”