Analysis: Remco Evenepoel’s UAE Tour win matters, but Catalunya is the real Giro test

We’re not even in March yet, and Remco Evenepoel has already laid down a marker for the 2023 season

In Argentina, a race he’d won back in 2020, a misstep in the Vuelta a San Juan on the Alto de Colorado all but burned out his own GC chances.

In the UAE Tour, on the other hand, where the stakes were significantly higher, his previous performance in 2020 (an abandon on stage 4) was significantly less successful, and the GC field as deep if not deeper than in Argentina, the Soudal-QuickStep racer fared far better than he said he had thought possible at this early point in the year. 

It’s worth remembering too, that Evenepoel came into UAE saying he’d settle for a stage win and a podium finish. But having blown UAE apart with his Soudal-QuickStep teammates on stage 1, won the team time trial with his squad on stage 2, then grabbed the lead on the first summit finish on stage 3, the race was all but his to lose and it wasn’t even half-way over. 

Even by racing conservatively -  on the stage 3 summit finish at Jebel Jais he had virtually no choice when two key climbing teammates punctured, and then on stage 7 he did not need to do more than ‘just’ follow Adam Yates as far as he could - his first WorldTour weeklong stage race since the 2020 Tour de Pologne was there for the taking. 

If you factor in two stage wins and a points jersey for Tim Merlier as well, it’s little wonder Patrick Lefevere is already using the individual and collective UAE success for Soudal-QuickStep to make a point about how poor they were in comparison in the Opening Weekend.

But if the effect of Lefevere’s Classics criticisms remains to be seen on the paves of Flanders and beyond, the effect of a big win for Evenepoel in February is relatively easier to measure, because it hinges on the past as much as the future. 

Don’t forget that not 10 days ago, Evenepoel was ‘pleading’ with Tadej Pogačar not to win any more races, and recognising how the Slovenian’s explosive start to 2023 had helped boost his own motivation for early success. Since then another one of cycling’s top GC Grand Tour racers, Jonas Vingegaard has taken an equally dramatic run of victories in O Camiño and Dani Martínez (Ineos Grenadiers), touted as his team’s main option for the Tour de France, has also captured a finely calculated victory in the Volta ao Algarve. Evenepoel is up there with them now, at least in terms of 2023.

But you could actually argue that Evenepoel’s early season win has the biggest long-term significance. And that’s not just because the UAE Tour is the only WorldTour victory of these four or that he managed to take on a very impressive UAE Team Emirates line-up and beat them in a vital home race.

It’s more because whereas Vingegaard, Martínez and Pogačar are all heading for the Tour de France, Evenepoel’s main Grand Tour target is the Giro d’Italia, which is nearly two months sooner. In comparison, none of his other top rivals for the maglia rosa have yet to show they are hitting the high notes, or even, in the case of Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma), started racing.

So far, so very good then, for Remco, and even more so given he’s yet to start his altitude training and crank up his form to his Giro d’Italia level. But if this augers well for May, the real test for the Giro is yet to come and it’ll be at the end of the month in the Volta a Catalunya, Evenepoel’s last stage race prior to heading for Italy.

It’s not just the difficulty of the mountain stages, with the Volta featuring, as always, road racing’s first incursion of the year into the Pyrenees and, much more exceptionally, the extremely hard ascent of Lo Port in southern Catalunya a few days later.

The opposition in Catalunya, even with the question mark hanging over Egan Bernal's participation, is significantly deeper than UAE; and opportunities for opportunistic time grabs like on stage 1 of the race, far less obvious. Evenepoel will also have his direct encounters of 2023 with two of his key rivals for the Giro, Geraint Thomas and Primoz Roglic. Adam Yates, also taking part, is clearly in top form as well, although he is thought to be heading for the Tour, not the Giro this summer.

On top of that, there is no individual time trial - we’ll have to wait for the Giro itself for that - where Evenepoel is now arguably in a class of his own and where he could make a difference in Catalunya too.

But if we focus just on UAE in itself, Evenepoel’s 38th career win, 11th overall stage race victory and second WorldTour stage race after Pologne and, of course, La Vuelta, was also his first as World Champion. 

As such - and just as the UAE Tour carries major significance for hugely talented Australian racer Luke Plapp, scoring his first WorldTour podium and Adam Yates, taking his first stage win with UAE Team Emirates - no matter who’s wearing the rainbow jersey, a victory in cycling’s most coveted season-long title always constitutes a landmark.