The time slot chosen by Soudal-QuickStep for Remco Evenepoel’s pre-Tour de France press conference was a curious one. He is cycling’s most notable football man since Gianni Savio, but Evenepoel sat down to meet the press just as Belgium were kicking off against Ukraine in their final group fixture at Euro 2024. The timing hardly suited the Belgian sporting press either. Maybe that was the point.
"Only five minutes because Belgium is playing," Evenepoel said when he appeared on screen for the video conference, joking but not joking. Still, even with one eye firmly on the exploits of Romelu Lukaku and the lads – "Sorry, that was close to a goal," he apologised at one point when the game demanded his full attention – he multi-tasked his way through a discussion of his Tour debut. The man really can do it all.
Evenepoel's preparation for the Tour was interrupted by the broken collarbone he sustained at Itzulia Basque Country in April, and he was shy of his best in the mountains at the Critérium du Dauphiné, placing 7th overall. He was also affected by a mild illness during his recent training camp at Isola 2000, missing the Belgian Championships as a result. Despite those setbacks, however, he expressed satisfaction with his condition three days from the Grand Départ in Florence.
"I need to be happy with what I did in the past two or three weeks, I've arrived in the best shape possible," Evenepoel said. "From the Dauphiné on, I tried to push myself to the maximum every day. So from that side, I don't have to blame myself for not training hard enough or pushing hard enough.
"I was really happy with the time trial win at the Dauphiné, it showed the base form was there. The mountain form wasn't there yet, the weight and the details you need to be a good climber weren't there yet. But I worked on that in the training camp and at home, so my confidence wasn't affected after the Dauphiné. Now I think I'm a few percentage points ahead of where I was at the Dauphiné."
Evenepoel did, however, reveal that he had been forced to tweak his workload over the past week or so. The cold that saw him opt against the Belgian Championships also had an impact on his training schedule.
"I couldn't do high-intensity training, so I couldn't do 100% of what I needed," he said. "Longer training rides weren't a problem, it's just that high-intensity training was not possible until yesterday."
The build-up to this Tour has been conditioned by that mass crash at Itzulia Basque Country, where defending champion Jonas Vingegaard and Primoz Roglič were also among the fallers. All three men lost training time to their injuries, and all will hope to improve their condition as the Tour progresses, but the race's tough opening stage – not to mention the Col du Galibier on stage 4 – will provide an early test of their credentials.
"Will it affect me for the Tour? We'll see. I hope to be up there in the first stage – not necessarily to win the stage, but I don't want to lose time," said Evenepoel. Like Vingegaard, he will bank on finding his best condition as the Tour progresses. "I hope I can use the first week to improve a little bit as swell. It would be good to go into my peak towards the third week. I hope it's like that, but that's easy to say."
Pogačar
At the start of the season, the Tour was couched a four-way tussle between Remco Evenepoel, Primož Roglič, Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar. The hierarchy of the main Tour de France contenders has become a little more sharply defined in the aftermath of both the Itzulia Basque Country crash and of Pogačar's disarming dominance at the Giro d'Italia.
"I expect Tadej to be unreachable, almost," Evenepoel said. "I think what he showed in the Giro is already super impressive and he didn't have to go too deep, so it won't have tired him out. I think Tadej will be the man to beat for this Tour de France."
The sentiment seems to extend to Pogačar's supporting cast at UAE Team Emirates, which features Adam Yates, João Almeida and Juan Ayuso. They will be expected to test Vingegaard's readiness – and that of Evenepoel and Roglič – on the tough opening stage from Florence to Rimini.
"If they decide that's their tactic, we have to let them do what they want and just try to follow that pace as long as possible," said Evenepoel, though he backed Vingegaard to hold firm. "Personally, I don't think Jonas will crack in the first days, not at all, but I think UAE and especially Pogačar want to pay back what Jumbo did last year to UAE. I'm curious to see how they approach the first day. UAE want to show they're the best team, kind of the Real Madrid of cycling."
Evenepoel, for his part, maintained his official line that a top-five finish is his objective, even if he knows that expectations are also elevated where he is concerned. Inevitably, he found himself downplaying the idea that he might be tempted onto the offensive on the opening stage.
"The only way I can win is by going solo, but it's not smart to do that with some GC ambitions in my head," he said. "Honestly, in the first week, I'll be more cautious than I am in Classics. You have to be smart, the Tour isn't one week, it's three long weeks. You have to economise where possible, I'll try to be as calm as possible and see how the race develops."
With that, the conference came to an end, and Evenepoel was free to devote his attention fully to Belgium's endeavours at Euro 2024. They weren't exactly convincing in their 0-0 draw with Ukraine, but it was enough to get through the first phase and stay in the hunt for the final victory. Evenepoel would probably settle for something similar this weekend.
