Back in competition this week, Remco Evenepoel retraced in a long message the four months which separated his terrible fall in the training of his recovery at La Flèche Brabançonne.
The image had been cold in the back: Remco Evenepoel evacuated in early December in the hospital, the upper tube of the frame of its broken gold bike. Barely four months after his serious training accident in Belgium, the Sudal Quick-Step runner begins his week of recovery in competition and chose to get out of his media silence this Monday evening.
On his Instagram account, the Belgian published several photos marking the year that has just passed, from the Olympic double to Paris to his accident, passing by his rehabilitation, always accompanied by his partner Oumaïma Rayane.
“Finally, my return week has arrived,” he said first in legend. “After days, weeks, months of waiting and waiting, I can finally turn to my first races.”
Remco “mentally depressed”
At 25, Remco Evenepoel was expected this Friday on the Brabançonne arrow, before the Amstel Gold Race on Sunday. If the Ardennes classics are one of his many specialties, he will have to face the hellish competition from Tadej Pogacar. Especially since no one can locate the current level of the Belgian after his fractures with a right hand, a coast and the right shoulder blade.
-According to the words of Remco Evenepoel, the simple fact of carrying a bib on a professional race is a considerable accomplishment. “The path that led me where I am today was very difficult and trying,” he said. “Certainly the hardest battle of my life so far. Mentally and physically, I can honestly say that I have been underground and that I really doubted a lot of my future. Many tears and frustration were present in our lives.”
Paris-Roubaix: Van der Poel, undisputed king of northern hell, dominates Pogacar!
The winner of the Tour of Spain 2022 then chose to thank all those around him during this event. Starting with his “charming wife” who supported him when he was “mentally depressed”. “Crossing this whole dark period was not easy for me (…) I can’t only say: thank you very much.”
Remco Evenepoel also paid tribute to the caregivers who took care of it. “All the medical staff who worked and still work with me during my rehabilitation: thank you, he launched. We came from afar, but we got there … again.” Because, if the December accident was very impressive, it was nonetheless of its fall in August 2020 during the Lombardy Tour behind a fracture of the basin and a contusion in the lung. Or that during the 4th stage of the Tour of the Basque Country, alongside Jonas Vingegaard, Primoz Roglic or Jay Vine.
Injuries that did not prevent him from returning to his best level each time, winning, among other things, two successive editions of Liège-Bastogne-Liège (2022 and 2023). A monument in which he must obviously participate in less than two weeks.
