QuickStep-AlphaVinyl boss Patrick Lefevere has said that he is looking at building up a structure of teams outside of the main WorldTour squad he oversees, with women's team NXTG-Experza his "priority" as he hopes a partnership with Tormans – current sponsor of the cyclo-cross team Tormans-Circus – can birth a Continental squad feeding into QuickStep.
Writing in his weekly column in Het Nieuwsblad, Lefevere said that, away from the WorldTour squad, he is focussed on the the Dutch women's development team NXTG, which saw Experza – a company he co-owns – became co-sponsor of for 2022.
The veteran team boss has said that the ambition for the team is to step up to the Women's WorldTour in 2023. He contrasted the natural growth of the team to WorldTour rival UAE Team Emirates taking over top women's squad Alé-BTC-Ljubljana this season.
"At the moment my priority is the women's team NXTG," he wrote. "Together with team manager Natascha Den Ouden, I am looking at how far we can jump in terms of budget. For now, it's not up to the World Tour, but that is our ambition for 2023.
"Then we'd have to talk about money again: the minimum wages for the ladies will go up to €32,100 per year next year, the equivalent of the minimum wage for the men's ProTeams. The aim is to equalise the wages of men and women in the World Tour as soon as possible, which will bring the minimum to €40,045 very soon.
"Don't get me wrong: there are many very good riders who are worth that and much more, but as a result you will also structurally overpay many young riders.
"If you have money, it's easy: you do like UAE Emirates have done and buy women's team Alé-BTC-Ljubljana straight away. But what we are doing now – growing to the World Tour with promising riders – I think is a much nicer and healthier concept."
Lefevere also expressed his interest in British teenager Zoe Bäckstedt, the junior world champion on the road and in cyclo-cross, who rides for Acrog-Tormans, the team where Remco Evenepoel and Bora-Hansgrohe neo-pro Cian Uijtdebroeks raced as juniors.
"Those talks are ongoing," Lefevere wrote. "But there are many candidates on the market. The intention is to have a structural cooperation with that team as well. Informally, it already existed – we housed Evenepoel there for a while – but now we are going to make it all more concrete."
Lefevere also hopes for a partnership with another team sponsored by Tormans, the cyclo-cross team currently led by Corné van Kessel and Quinten Hermans. Last week it was announced that the sponsor would separate from Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert and join the QuickStep-AlphaVinyl structure for 2023 (while Intermarché-Wanty-Gober would maintain a cyclo-cross team under a different name).
That news was followed up by the reports that Alpecin-Fenix had swooped in and signed up the team's two top stars as well as two young riders for next season, though Jan Tormans insisted to WielerFlits that his own switch to QuickStep would still go ahead regardless.
Lefevere said that the idea of having a Continental feeder team – a role that a Tormans-sponsored squad would play alongside its cyclo-cross commitments – would benefit to QuickStep-AlphaVinyl, especially considering the current situation where teams can be spread across three races at once, and where COVID-19 cases complicate things even further.
"If people can drop out at any moment and you have to ride three programmes at the same time, even with a core of 31 riders you can get into trouble," Lefevere wrote. "That is what we are experiencing now. The solution? Doing what teams like Jumbo-Visma and DSM are already doing.
"If you integrate a training team at Continental level in the team structure, you can train promising riders there and transfer them to the 'A-team' for specific non-World Tour races.
"In an ideal world, Tormans would become our Continental team. It would then also race cyclo-cross in the winter and act as a 'breeding ground'. But I keep hitting the same nail on the head – everything revolves around the budget.
"Ideally, next year QuickStep-AlphaVinyl will have a youth team, a team at Continental level and then elite women and men at the top of the pyramid. But as I said: between dream and deed there is always the accountant."
