"This was the hardest women's race I saw" - Patrick Lefevere figuratively blown away by the spectacular echelon show at UAE Tour Women

The second stage of UAE Tour Women had an expected winner in Lorena Wiebes, but the road to this result was far from foreseeable. A stage blown open in echelons and the home riders of UAE Team ADQ took matters into their own hands with three women in the leading group of five. For Patrick Lefevere, the legendary team manager, it was a bliss to witness such spectacular battle on crosswinds.

"I've been to a few women's races but this was by far the hardest one I saw," Lefevere told Cyclingnews. "There are no secrets out there, there is so much wind, either you are in the front or you are dropped. There are only two possibilities and it depends on who you are. It's also because the women often don't have the experience to make echelons, and it was echelons from kilometre 1 so it was good to see in the car."

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Lefevere seems genuinely impressed and wanted to put the record straight after being criticised for previously criticising women's racing. "I want to tell the truth as I did an explanation and some English-speaking people took it the wrong way," Lefevere said.

In an interview published in the Krant van West-Vlaanderen, Lefevere was quoted as saying that the women's cycling had not yet progressed enough for all the riders to earn a minimum wage, in the same way as the men do. As was reported at the time, Lefevere said that he asked some riders how much they earn in a month, to which they some told him between €200-250.  

"I told them that this is a scandal," Lefevere explained. "I said I wouldn't run a women's team if I had to pay that (little, ed.), I didn't want to be this sort of organisation, if I made a women's team I wanted to do it well." And that's exactly what he did some time later when he joined forces with AG Insurance to rapidly build one of the strongest teams in women's peloton.

"I had big, big help from AG insurance, who believes in women's cycling without limits. Without their help, we would not be here today," said Lefevere. "I brought the €250,000 budget up to €4 million. I did what I had to do, and every sponsor and this team, I brought it. So, I think everybody is happy. Now we have a development team too and we tell the agents to start chasing the riders when they are younger. We see a lot of talent in our development team so I think the future is nice, if we can keep the money in cycling," he concludes.

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