Patrick Lefevere (born 6 January 1955 in Moorslede

Moorslede

Moorslede is a municipality located in the Belgian province of West Flanders. The municipality comprises the towns of Dadizele and Moorslede proper. On 1 January 2006, Moorslede had a total population of 10,618...

) is the Belgian

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 cycling team

Cycling team

A cycling team is a group of cyclists who join a team or are acquired and train together to compete in bicycle races whether recreational or professional - and the supporting personnel...

 manager of the Quick Step-Innergetic

Quick Step-Innergetic

Quick Step is a Belgian UCI ProTour cycling team led by team manager Patrick Lefévère. The directors are Rik Verbrugghe, Davide Bramati, Wilfried Peeters, Rik Van Slycke and Luca Guercilena. The mechanics are Jeanick Verstraete and Kurt Roose...

 cycling team. He is from Flanders

Flanders

Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...

, the Dutch-speaking region of the north. He was a professional racer from 1976 to 1979, winning Kuurne–Brussels–Kuurne and the fourth stage in the Vuelta a España

Vuelta a España

The Vuelta a España is a three-week road bicycle racing stage race that is one of the three "Grand Tours" of Europe and part of the UCI World Ranking calendar. The race lasts three weeks and attracts cyclists from around the world. The race is broken into day-long segments, called stages...

, both in 1978. He then became a team manager.

Lefevere was a sporting director of the Mapei

Mapei (cycling team)

Mapei was an Italian based road bicycle racing team active from 1993 to 2002, named after sponsoring firm Mapei. From 2003 Mapei dropped the sponsorate, and a new team was built on top of the old with the name of Quick Step-Davitamon....

 of the 1990s, and he started the Domo-Farm Frites team of the early 2000s. Since 2003 he has been manager of the Quick Step team.

Lefevere managed teams with many one-day race specialists such as Johan Museeuw

Johan Museeuw

Johan Museeuw is a retired Belgian professional road bicycle racer. He was a professional from 1988 to 2004 and was particularly successful in the classic cycle races in the nineties....

, Michele Bartoli

Michele Bartoli

Michele Bartoli is a retired Italian road racing cyclist. He was a single-day race specialist, winning three of the five Monument races. Bartoli won the UCI Road World Cup in 1997 and 1998.-Biography:...

, Paolo Bettini

Paolo Bettini

Paolo Bettini is an Italian former champion road racing cyclist, and the coach of the Italian national cycling team. Considered the best classics specialist of his generation, and probably one of the strongest of all times, he won gold medals in the 2004 Athens Olympics road race and in the 2006...

 and Richard Virenque

Richard Virenque

Richard VirenqueRichard Virenque's name is pronounced Ree-shah Vee-rahnk. Virenque considers himself a man of the South but pronounces his name in standard French. Confusion is caused by the southern habit of pronouncing "en" as "ang" or "eng", making it Vee-rank. But Virenque says Vee-rahnk or...

. At the end of 2005 he had two world champions: Tom Boonen

Tom Boonen

Tom Boonen is a Belgian professional road bicycle racer who won the 2005 World Road Race Championship. He is a member of the team, and is considered a single-day road race specialist with a strong finishing sprint...

 on the road and Michael Rogers in the time trial

Time trial

In many racing sports an athlete will compete in a time trial against the clock to secure the fastest time. In cycling, for example, a time trial  can be a single track cycling event, or an individual or team time trial on the road, and either or both of the latter may form components of...

.

Lefevere has suffered several heart diseases and now delegates the role of directeur-sportif to assistants.

Lefevere was accused of doping by a Belgian newspaper. Het Laatste Nieuws

Het Laatste Nieuws

Het Laatste Nieuws is a Dutch language newspaper based in Brussels, Belgium. It was founded by Julius Hoste Sr. on 7 June 1888. It is now part of De Persgroep, and has a circulation of 292,410 copies, making it the most popular newspaper in Flanders and Belgium.- Comics :During World War II, The...

ran articles on 23 and 24 January 2007 entitled "Lefevere, 30 Years Of Dope" A court in Brussels subsequently ordered the paper to pay €500,000 in damages and costs.

Quotes

• "Whoever wins five of the former World Cup races in one year, as well as having a world champion [two, counting Michael Rogers, who left the team the following year], and has been in the firing line from January to October, can speak of a huge year."
• "It's hypocritical. Armstrong brought so much more international attention to cycling. I have a lot of strong feelings about this, so I better not say anything else."
• "I treat all my riders the same, but Johan Museeuw has a special place in my heart."
• Maybe we should sue Landis, why not? Why don't we use the American way? As long as Landis continues to claim he doesn't know about anything, such a scenario becomes more and more likely.
• I want to throw up when I hear him. Landis has turned the clock twenty years backwards.