Patrick Lefevere has been handed a 20,000 CHF fantastic by the UCI, suspended on situation of a public apology, following a UCI Ethics Fee determination over reviews of what the physique describes as ‘public feedback thought-about as disparaging in direction of ladies’.
The Ethics Fee discovered that the outspoken Soudal-QuickStep supervisor had breached article 5 and 6.1 of the UCI Code of Ethics, and has imposed a 20,000 CHF fantastic.
The fantastic shall be suspended, “on the situation that Mr Lefevere points a public assertion and doesn’t commit an analogous breach of the UCI Code of Ethics throughout the subsequent three years,” an announcement from the UCI learn.
The UCI assertion didn’t specify the feedback in query, nevertheless, Lefevere has usually courted controversy with his daring public feedback – most just lately surrounding Julian Alaphilippe’s poor type in latest seasons.
Lefevere’s feedback insulated that his performances might have been on account of his life-style, and positioned a number of the blame on the ft of Alaphilippe’s accomplice Marion Rousse.
“An excessive amount of partying, an excessive amount of alcohol…” Lefevere mentioned in an interview with Belgian journal Humo. “Julian is severely below the affect of Marion Rousse. Possibly an excessive amount of.”
Rousse, who’s the director of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift and a former French nationwide highway race champion, hit again at Lefevere’s feedback on the time.
“No matter Mr Lefevere’s emotions in direction of me, it is unacceptable to assault our non-public lives as he’s doing,” she mentioned in a reply on Twitter.
“I do not drink alcohol, by no means have. I do not drink at events both, as a result of with a three-year-old, we desire to be on type within the morning.”
Lefevere, who can also be part-owner of girls’s staff AG Insurance coverage-Soudal-Fast Step, subsequently walked again on his feedback. “This interview was three hours, the passage about Julian was three minutes,” Lefevere mentioned. “As at all times, my Dutch is just not at all times nicely understood, however possibly I made a mistake to discuss this. I [talked] about November 2022, and it is 2024 now. I perceive there may be not a lot information for the time being, so it is ‘fressen’ as we are saying in Dutch.”
Alongside the choice on Lefevere, the UCI Ethics Fee revealed its determination on Fazli Ahmad Fazli, president of the Afghan Biking Federation, the place it didn’t discover proof of a breach of ethics from a humanitarian operation through which the Nationwide Federation and the UCI took half in evacuating a lot of cyclists and different residents throughout political unrest with a authorities takeover. The fee said that investigations have been ongoing.
One other determination was reached on Mr Alexander Bashenko, president of the Ukrainian Biking Federation, who was discovered to have breached the Ethics Code with the “use of insulting language directed at incumbent officers throughout the Nationwide Federation in addition to officers of the UCI and the Worldwide Olympic Committee (IOC)”. He was issued a 5,000 CHF fantastic and suspended for one 12 months, ranging from Could 23, 2023.
When contacted concerning the determination on Patrick Lefevere’s breach by Cyclingnews, there was no preliminary response from Soudal-QuickStep.
