There has been a lot of banter surrounding the riding without earphones tests carried out at the ongoing Tour de Pologne. Richard Plugge and UCI boss David Lappartient have already been arguing about it on social media, and many other prominent names from the cycling world have responded by taking Plugge’s side. The outspoken manager of Soudal – Quick-Step, Patrick Lefevere, also shared his opinion on the matter, calling the experiment “completely ridiculous and symptomatic”.
Lefevere took part in the discussion in his column in Het Nieuwsblad. “I would like to end my column with my opinion on the discussion about earphones in Poland. As is known, the cycling association there is conducting an experiment: only two riders per team are allowed to be in radio contact with the support vehicle. If I am correctly informed, there were no earphones on the last stages.”
“I find this measure completely ridiculous and symptomatic of the lack of unity that still exists in the peloton,” he says, referring to numerous complaints among riders and teams – so far without success. “I have seen twenty emails in which the teams wrote emphatically: ‘Never in our lifetime’. Now it is happening anyway. Not coincidentally at the Tour of Poland, with race director John Lelangue, the most flexible person in the world when it comes to the wishes of the UCI.”
Lefevere also criticizes the lack of intervention by the team association AIGCP: “It is also a disgrace for the AIGCP – the umbrella organization of the teams. I have known Brent Copeland as someone who always knows better at meetings, but as chairman he now shows little backbone. I wonder: what if there is a big oil slick on the road and the peloton doesn’t notice it? I hope that some people will be deeply ashamed then.”