Guillaume Marion, Media365, published on Wednesday November 6, 2024 at 1:35 p.m.
After a very good season in 2024, Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step) made no secret of the fact that he now hoped to return to victory during a Grand Tour. The Belgian's rivals have been warned.
The year 2024 will perhaps go down as one of the best in Remco Evenepoel's career. Indeed, in recent months, the Belgian notably ranked 3rd in the Tour de France, and therefore finished with the white jersey, but was also a double gold medalist during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games and was also champion of the time trial world. In addition to this, the rider from the Soudal-Quick Step team finished 2nd in Paris-Nice and in the Tour of Lombardy. Logically rewarded with the title of “Flandrien” of the year 2024, Evenepoel then spoke about his ambitions for 2025. “ The Tour is not a toy. It's not easy to make the general classification. Everyone really needs to be at 110%. I'm not going to say it wasn't good this year, but I think it could have been better. Then, I talk about the fitness level of certain runners,” explained the latter in particular.
“Pogacar and Vingegaard are my new references”
« My third place on the Tour motivated me enormously to do better on a Grand Tour. It doesn't matter which one, but… I'd really like to feel like I won one again. So that will be the focus for next year. (…) Last season, I dominated the time trials. I also noticed that I am one of the best climbers, but there are two even better. Pogacar and Vingegaard are my new references. You could say I'm young and I still have time to win Grand Tours, but I'm 25 years old. Maybe I will do this for another five or six years, so the time has come, Evenepoel later said, in comments collected by the newspaper Het Nieuwsblad. Everyone knows that my remaining goals are to win the Giro and the Tour, so I want to fully invest in them. » His rivals have been warned.
