Belgium’s team includes Wout van Aert and Remco Evenepoel, both favourites for the world title in Montreal. Patrick Lefevere, though, is looking elsewhere: at the first 112 kilometres, between the start and the local circuit, where someone has to control the race.
He calls it a “systeemfoutje”, a little systemic glitch. “I have a problem with the way a position gets filled when everyone rushes past it,” he wrote, according to WielerFlits. The position in question belongs to Alec Segaert. “I don’t think Alec Segaert is the right man to control the race. Not because Alec can’t do it, but because he’s too good a rider for it.”
Lefevere points out that Segaert is a half-leader at Bahrain Victorious, and that this kind of work needs a rider with no ego at all: “no little voice in your head saying, let’s see how far I can get myself.” Tim Declercq, in his view, was the ideal man for it. “People can laugh at me if they like, but I wouldn’t find it dishonourable to bring someone like Ayco Bastiaens to the Worlds, specifically for that kind of work.”
A position everyone rushes past, that’s the finest description of my trade I’ve ever read. I held that position for two and a half seasons, no little voice in my head, because where I rode the little voice was the sports director shouting out the team car window, and I called him “sir”. You ride at the front, you hold the gap, you look back to check the kopman, the leader, is still there, and then you sit up, and the camera’s already gone. At the front, I couldn’t tell you. But kilometre one hundred and twelve, I can tell you: that’s where they thank you by not looking at you any more. A hundred and twelfth at the Ronde, the Tour of Flanders, that was me. Inside the time limit. Not a bad number for a job like that.
It’s true, we checked: WielerFlits.
