"Disparaging remarks towards women": UCI takes action in the Lefevere case

UCI demands public statement from Patrick Lefevere

The UCI has an etiquette code, the current version of which comprises 30 pages and sets out exactly how people who are bound by it must behave. According to the Commission, Lefevere has violated "general principles" (Art. 5) and "general rules of integrity", in the specific case of "non-discrimination" (Art. 6.1).

In order to avoid the fine, the UCI has asked the 69-year-old to make a public statement to "acknowledge the inappropriateness of his comments and apologise for them". Furthermore, Lefevere must not violate the code in a similar case in the next three years.

UCI gets specific with TOUR

The UCI did not specify the exact statements made by the Belgian that led to the penalty, but did clarify in response to a TOUR enquiry that "the offences mentioned relate to incidents that were reported in 2023." This rules out the possibility that these were about the debate surrounding Julian Alaphilippe and his girlfriend Marion Rousse in which Lefevere indirectly discredited the head of the women's Tour de France. These only became public in February of this year, although Lefevere dated their origin back to November 2022 in a follow-up statement.

However, the long-time Quick-Step manager has also indulged in sexist excesses in the past. During the 2021 World Championships, Lefevere was criticised in a podcast by Het Laatste Nieuws asked when a women's department would be set up in his organisation. However, he was not a charity organisation and would postpone such considerations until there were enough strong Belgian women.

Also in this context, but also from 2021, is a statement by Lefevere about his former sprinter Sam Bennett, who switched to Quick Step after years at Bora-Hansgrohe, but re-signed with the Raublingers barely a year later. "It's like when women return home to their husbands from whom they have experienced domestic violence," he wrote in his weekly column in the daily newspaper Het Nieuwsblad. According to the Belgian, Bennett left Bora because he felt badly treated by the team.