Patrick Lefevere became a sports director in 1979, the year Margaret Thatcher came to power, during the Cold War, in a world that seems so distant to 2024. Over 40 years on, it was announced earlier this month that the Belgian would leave his role as CEO of Soudal Quick-Step, the team that he has been in charge of for the past 22 years.
For a remarkable 11 of those years, Quick-Step in its various iterations won the most races of any cycling team on the WorldTour, winning 981 races in total according to ProCyclingStats. During Lefevere's time at the helm, the team won 22 Monuments, including eight editions of the Tour of Flanders, which gave it a reputation as the men to beat in the Classics. He also oversaw a transition into a GC team, led by their latest star rider, Remco Evenepoel, who claimed Quick-Step's first Grand Tour victory, the 2022 Vuelta a España. They also won 124 Grand Tour stages.
