Former Lotto Soudal manager Marc Sergeant has issued a stinging rebuke to his successor John Lelangue after it was announced Thursday that the team’s current boss would be quitting at the end of the year.
A team statement said that Lelangue had made the decision over the summer to move on from the Belgian team to a new, unspecified job, with Lotto Soudal fighting a losing battle against relegation from the WorldTour.
Following nearly 20 years where Sergeant was top director at Lotto Soudal, Paul De Geyter took over as new general manager of the Belgian team in August 2017. Lelangue then ran the squad from 2018 onwards, with Sergeant first pushed into a less influential role before leaving altogether at the end of last year.
Sergeant, whose long-standing ally Herman Frison also left last year, delivered a withering comment on Twitter on Thursday after news of Lelangue's exit. It did not mention Lelangue's name but the implication was clear.
“Imagine, you get a beautiful ship, it has been well maintained for decades and yet you start to make a hole in it. But as it's sinking, you get a new other boat first and then quickly leave the sinking ship."
Sergeant finished his message with two hashtags: "#missionsuccessful" and "scandalous".
Intentionally or not, Sergeant’s comments echo Lelangue’s words in a team statement published Thursday afternoon saying: "I decided that after four years I had accomplished my mission and that I was ready for a new challenge."
Despite a strong first season in 2019, performances under Lelangue plummeted in 2020 and 2021, coinciding with the start of the UCI's three-year ranking system that would decide WorldTour licences for 2023-2025.
Results have picked up this year, partly thanks to 21-year-old neo-pro Arnaud De Lie, but the team still find themselves deep in the relegation zone with less than three weeks to go until the end of the season.
It is now highly likely the team will lose WorldTour status and race as a second-division ProTeam from 2023-2025. Their relatively strong ranking this year alone means they would earn automatic invites to WorldTour races in 2023 but would have to fight for Tour de France spots in 2024 and 2025 before looking to bounce back into the WorldTour in 2026.
