EF Education-EasyPost’s head DS, Charly Wegelius, says the job is all about tactics, communication and ‘51% ownership of decision making’
Words: James Witts Photography: Harry Talbott
‘I remember early on, Allan Peiper said to me, “You can do your work perfectly and get the worst outcome and be considered the most incompetent sports director around. Or you can do it all wrong and win a race.” He was right.’
Despite the data-driven decisions that dominate modern road cycling, EF Education-EasyPost’s head DS, Charly Wegelius, has been around long enough to know that there are few things that you can fully control in the world of WorldTour racing.
‘Still, if you ask me the most satisfying aspect of my job, I wouldn’t say victory. It’s the situations where a rider might not have the vision to follow a certain tactic, but you persuade them, and it pays off.’
Born in Finland, educated in York
Wegelius was born in Espoo, Finland, to his Finnish father – Harald Wegelius, a former banker who was also his country’s most successful show jumper – and his English mother, Elizabeth Jane Murray.
‘She met my father in Ireland in the 1960s and lived in Finland for 15 years, albeit they divorced when I was young. I ended up going to school in York, but basically flitted between the two countries,’ Wegelius says. That’s why, when he had the chance to compete at the 1999 European Road Championships, aged 20, he represented Great Britain. He won a silver medal in the under-23 time-trial at that event, and also raced professionally between 2000 and 2011. Now he, his wife and three children are based in Italy, but he spends long periods in Finland and still calls it home.
‘We’re reserved people and you have to work hard to break through socially. But if you get a Finn as a friend it’s a real friend for life. It’s a highly organised and highly functioning society.’ Just the kind of attributes that any team looks for in a directeur sportif. Wegelius has been a DS at EF Education since 2012, with the last six years as head DS. It also helps that the Finns are renowned as rally drivers – Finland is second only to France in terms of World Rally Championship wins. Wegelius reckons he has racked up tens if not hundreds of thousands of kilometres driving the EF team car.
‘We’re not obliged to take an advanced driving test, but at EF we’ve had extra driving practice from a Danish guy who races in the Porsche category. We drove the team cars around a track in Barcelona on a slippery, wet circuit. It was good but still couldn’t mimic the chaos of the Tour. The number of spectators lining the roads can be hairy, especially on the mountains.’Not that driving is the main part of the job: ‘My biggest task now is being responsible for the riders’ racing calendar,’ he says. ‘If you want to maximise results, ensuring the riders are ready and at a race that suits them with the people to support them, that can be a puzzle.’
It’s a puzzle that Wegelius is becoming a master of solving. In 2023, the American outfit racked up its greatest number of victories over the season since he started as DS in 2012. Even more impressive from Wegelius’s viewpoint, the 26 wins were spread between 13 riders, with Ireland’s Ben Healy surprising many, including Wegelius himself, with the most successes (five).
‘That’s why, when it comes to targets for 2024, it’s anything and everything,’ he says. ‘Yes you make plans, but you know one rider might underperform and another might overperform. If you’d asked me last year what our goal was for a race like Amstel Gold, I wouldn’t have said for Healy to finish second.’
At the races
Wegelius estimates he covers around 120 race days a year: ‘At a Grand Tour, we’ll have three sports directors – two in the first car and one in the second – with one driving and one calling the race on the radio. The day starts at 6am when I’ll go for a walk or run, have breakfast and then check in with the staff, like the doctor, to see if any issues have cropped up overnight. After breakfast I’ll go for another walk with the sports directors and churn over the plan that day. People talk better and open up more when you’re moving around rather than sitting.
‘The heavy lifting will have been done well before the race. The DS who calls the race will have his presentations ready for the bus briefings. There will be a minimal amount to do in the morning, like how the weather might affect things and ascertaining the fatigue levels of the riders. Who are we going to use today? Who will we rest? If we go in a breakaway, who’ll pull and how hard?
‘If there’s anything contentious, on the way to the start we’ll have a chat with the riders. How do you feel? Can you manage it? We don’t want to surprise them at the briefing so that they sit there thinking, “Shit, I wasn’t expecting that.” Everybody should leave that bus knowing what their task is. Ultimately, we look to create an open atmosphere. That said, I have 51% ownership in the decision making.’
And what’s the best way to deal with the riders?
‘I’m not one for screaming down the radio or visiting the riders when having a massage for “priest confession” but after the stage I like to debrief as quickly as possible. If there needs to be conflict, we want them to have it when the riders are “hot”. Debrief too late and they calm down and are afraid to say what they think for fear of upsetting someone.’
With 30 riders from 16 different nationalities, inevitably there are cultural differences – ‘German and Nordic riders can be incredibly blunt, although that’s no bad thing’ – but Wegelius prides himself on being 100% transparent with the riders.
‘There is a hierarchy, so I suppose it’s a meritocracy. But it’s all about doing the best for the team. Basically, you communicate with the riders, you have a plan, you hit the start… and that’s when everything starts to go wrong!’
Charles ‘Charly’ Wegelius
Job title: Directeur sportif at EF Education-EasyPost
Nationality: British/Finnish
Seasons in the job: 13
Teams worked with: EF Education-EasyPost
