The top pro riders are super dedicated people who never take their foot of the gas and do everything they can to get form and hold onto it, right? Well, not always, according to Soudal QuickStep boss Patrick Lefevere.
He has been explaining the different ways riders leave his team. With some, he is glad to see them go and others where the exit is more personal and more difficult. For example, he reveals Tim Declercq was willing to reduce his salary with the team for next year so he could stay, but Lefevere would not agree because he believes riders who take a pay cut do not perform as well.
And in the case of Mauro Schmid - a very talented Swiss rider who is leaving for Team Jayco AlULa - he simply disappeared off the radar (literally) once it was confirmed he was leaving Soudal QuicksStep.
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“You sometimes lose riders who sign a contract for another team. Literally in the case of Mauro Schmid, who will move to Jayco-Alula after this season," Lefevere writes in his column today in Het Nieuwsblad.
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"After the World Championships in Glasgow he disappeared from the radar. When trainer Koen Pelgrim asked why his data had not been loaded into our training program, he said that his Garmin was broken. It later turned out that he had been on a trip to Las Vegas for six days. At the end of the season you spend fewer words saying goodbye.”
Lefevere says with nine departures from his team at the end of this year, some of those circumstances are harder than others. But he also did not believe in cutting a rider's salary to facilitate them staying on the team, saying riders did not perform as well after a drop in salary.
“I could say that saying goodbye is never pleasant, but in practice it varies considerably from case to case. Tim Declercq who rode for us for seven years, yes, that is with a heavy heart. I would have loved to keep him, he would have loved to stay, but there is a financial reality.
"Tim is in a certain salary range. He wanted to reduce his price slightly, but I didn't like that. In my experience: a driver who earns less is a driver who will perform less. We were unable to reach an agreement and he received a nice offer from Lidl-Trek, a team that clearly has money. They also take over Andrea Bagioli from us. So be it, just as good friends.”
