Former QuickStep boss Patrick Lefevere has weighed in on Primož Roglič's potential transfer to Lotto-Intermarché, citing Mark Cavendish, Philippe Gilbert, and Richard Virenque from his experience of negotiating contracts with aging stars.
Roglič, the 36-year-old five-time Grand Tour champion, is out of contract at Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe at the end of 2026 and has been linked with a surprise move to Belgian squad Lotto, where Lefevere was a director in the 1980s.
Lefevere went on to become the boss of the rival Belgian team currently known as Soudal-QuickStep, where he gained a reputation for signing riders when their value was relatively low and unsentimentally dispensing with them at their peak.
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"There are plenty of examples of riders who want to sign a good contract at the end of their careers and then let it slide. I think I can say that I had a good gut feeling in that regard," Lefevere stated in his weekly Saturday column for Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad.
"When I brought Richard Virenque to the team in 2001, they wanted to hang me from the highest tree. Yet, it turned out to be a huge success," he argued.
"I offered Mark Cavendish a contract in 2021 when he wasn't worth five francs anymore, resulting in four stage wins in the Tour de France and the green jersey."
Virenque was almost 32 when he signed for the team then known as Domo Farm Frites, and went on to win three stages at the Tour de France.
Cavendish was washed up and on the verge of retirement when Lefevere picked him up in 2021, kick-starting an extraordinary comeback that saw the Manxman win four stages at that year's Tour de France. Cavendish, however, was bumped back down the pecking order in 2022 and wasn't offered a new contract for 2023, eventually moving to Astana to complete his ambition to become the all-time record holder for Tour de France stage wins.
"Where my gut feeling also came in handy: knowing when not to offer someone a contract extension, despite their successes," Lefevere wrote on Saturday, citing another former rider, Philippe Gilbert.
Similarly to Cavendish, Lefevere oversaw a remarkable turnaround in Gilbert's career, with the Belgian, after years of tension with Greg Van Avermaet at BMC, finally unlocking his cobbled Classics potential and winning both the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix for QuickStep. Gilbert left for Lotto in 2020 but didn't produce any major results.
"Gilbert was very well-liked with us because he was so professional, but I didn't want to pay what Lotto was offering at the time. We parted ways on the very best terms, something that wasn't the case with Cavendish," Lefevere said.
"Certainly not, because he lashed out at me in his book afterwards. I found that ungrateful. After all, I had pulled him out of the shit."
Cavendish's latest autobiography, published last year, accuses Lefevere of reneging on verbal agreements and under-paying him during what he described as a 'frankly insulting saga' when it came to negotiating a contract renewal for 2022.
As for Roglič, Lefevere acknowledged that he wasn't aware of the Slovenian's current levels of motivation, which would, he indicated, be the most important factor for him as a prospective boss. However, he questioned the wisdom of a move to Lotto, highlighting the team's recent track record in signing aging stars.
"We have to be honest, that means teams aren't exactly lining up to sign him," he said of Lotto's reported interest in Roglič.
"Although Lotto has already made a few big-name signings in recent years that undoubtedly didn't come for peanuts, but where the transfer turned out not to be a success afterwards. John Degenkolb, Elia Viviani, and Philippe Gilbert rode for the national lottery for a combined six years and recorded a grand total of four victories, none of which were in the WorldTour.
"Suffice it to say: attracting and letting go of people at the right moment is a quality not to be underestimated in our world," Lefevere concluded.
