Patrick Lefevere calls for a minimum number of race days

In his latest column for Nieuwsblad, Lefevere reflected on the increasingly selective race programmes of cycling’s biggest names.

“I sometimes find it striking,” Lefevere wrote. “It is May and Pogačar has nine race days. Mathieu van der Poel has thirteen, Jonas Vingegaard fifteen. Riders of that calibre can of course afford that. Pogačar wins six of the nine races he starts. Van der Poel has four wins from thirteen. Vingegaard’s tally is already at six as well. Of course a sponsor is satisfied then.”

His concern, however, is not necessarily with riders such as Pogačar or Van der Poel limiting themselves to the biggest targets. According to Lefevere, the bigger issue is that other riders may try to copy that approach without having the same status or ability to make it work.

“The problem is that there is a spillover effect towards the lesser gods,” Lefevere wrote. “Riders with less stature think they should copy the approach of training a lot and racing little. I’m not so sure about that, but once it is in their head, just try to argue against it.”

“That Pogačar and Van der Poel limit themselves to the big appointments, fair enough,” he said. “With many other riders, I think: could it maybe be a little more?”

Lefevere also questioned whether racing itself is becoming too secondary in modern preparation, with altitude camps and training blocks increasingly shaping the calendar.

“Which riders still like racing?” he wrote. “I know that altitude camps work, but sometimes races now seem like intermezzos between two of those camps. And I ask myself: does a sprinter really need to go on an altitude camp? Certainly not twice a season.”

That led him to raise the idea of a minimum number of race days, although he stressed that he is not calling on the UCI to create another set of rules.

“The last thing I would want is to encourage the UCI to bring even more little rules into the world,” Lefevere said. “But as a team, you have to respect the maximum workload of a rider. In my time, riders were not allowed to have more than eighty five race days. Maybe it is not a bad idea to also introduce a lower limit.”