Few team bosses are as volcanic as Patrick Lefevere, the boss of Soudal. Ambitious and vocal, the manager is not the most diplomatic motivator with his cyclists. When he is not happy he is not one of those who knows or can hide it. His statements transpired these days in the angry Tour, seeing that the stages passed and his riders were not even close to winning.
Jakobsen, the sprinter, was fourth in Bayonne and crashed in Nogaro and did not get fully involved in the mass arrivals again. He left injured and already knows that next year he will change colors. For his part, the former world champion, Alaphilippe, tried it in the middle mountains but could only be tenth the day Pello Bilbao won. While Cavagna, a good time trialist who will run for Movistar in 2024, was in positions of honor but very far from Vingegaard in the Combloux time trial.
With the fly behind his ear, Lefevere has long suspected that he must build a team around Remco Evenepoel so that the winner of the last Tour of Spain can aspire to the yellow of Paris.
You have to go back to 2012 to find a Tour in which the boys of the wolf pack, as they call themselves, wolfpack, did not take a stage in their bags. With any of their names, Omega Pharma, Etixx, Deceuninck or Quick Step, they always used to get on the podium. And almost always more than once. With Cavendish, Tony Martin, Kittel, Gaviria, Bennett or Trentin. Since that year they have added 33 partial victories in the French round in their private and particular collection. But this 2023 did not see the moment.
In those they were in the team when Kasper Asgreen saved the Tour for Soudal and made the old fox Lefevere happy, although that is completely difficult. The squad adds another year dunking on the Tour. And it’s already 11 years in a row with leaving a mark.
The Dane won stage 18 as breakaway win-hunters like best, against the odds and with the peloton hot on his heels. Asgreen escaped as soon as the day began along with Campeonaets (Lotto) and Abrahamsen (Uno-X), later they were joined by Eenkhoorn, also from Lotto. None of the three teams had won yet and they tried differently, aware that this year Philipsen has no rival in sprints.
The peloton never let go of the rope too much but the four escapees fought it out and did not give up despite the odds being low. But in the third week the forces in the peloton are no longer the same. The sprinter teams had to put their climbers like Harper (Jayco), Skjelmose (Lidl) or Konrad (Bora) to work, but the four of them resisted. They pounced on them but late.
With 178 km to go, Asgreen beat his breakaway colleagues, except for Campenaerts who was gobbled up, and Philipsen was fourth. All with the same time. “I couldn’t have done it without Pascal, Victor and Jonas. It was almost a team time trial. We all deserved it”, confessed the Dane in Bourg en Bresse, where the Tour came for the third time. The previous two were won by Hushvod and Boonen, two world champions. Asgreen, 28, has been assigned. Lefevere likes that better.
