As the dust settled on the European Championships elite men's road race and another Tadej Pogačar exhibition, with 31 seconds still separating them at the line, silver medallist Remco Evenepoel could only concede that he needs to improve -and this despite the rest of the field being completely blown away by the top two finishers.
Pogačar began to apply maximum pressure with 76km to go. Only Evenepoel could follow initially, but soon he started to look over his shoulder, and then he had to pull the pin. The watts were too high and he wouldn't see Pogačar's rainbow jersey again, until arriving in Guilherand-Granges 75km later.
"It's a shame, because if I could have hung on for thirty or forty seconds longer, it would have flattened out again," said Evenepoel to Nieuwsblad after Sunday's race.
Latest Videos From
"It was the first time I could follow his attack for so long, and I didn't get blown away, so that was positive. But if I want to beat him in the future, I have to work on this kind of effort. Those three to five minutes of really hard work on a climb."
Figuring out just how to close that gap and follow the same very attacks in future races is a challenge that will also be a top priority for his new employers for 2026, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe.
"How can I improve on that? Luckily, I'm changing teams, and it's up to my new coach to fix that," said Evenepoel. "I worked on it this summer, and in recent weeks and months, I feel like I'm getting better. It's important to train for that this winter as well.
"I think the wattage data from this race will be very interesting for my coach to analyze. He'll then have to decide what kind of training I should do. Because if I want to beat Pogačar in the future, I have to improve."
While the official partnership won't begin until January 1, Evenepoel will begin the transition away from Soudal-QuickStep to the German super team after his final race of 2025 at Il Lombardia and into the off-season.
With that goal of closing the gap to Pogačar at the forefront of their ambitions, Red Bull are already on the case and with growing confidence that it isn't a fool's errand. That belief is one notably held by his former national coach, Sven Vanthourenhout, who will be one of several new performance staff members at Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe in the coming season.
"The collaboration with Remco won't officially start for a few weeks, but we're already working on it behind the scenes," Vanthourenhout told Het Laatste Nieuws when posed the question of closing the gap. "There's a lot of talking and plenty of ideas being exchanged."
"On the one hand, you have Pogačar, who is an enormous talent – it's very clear that he has certain natural qualities that can't always be trained.
"On the other hand, I'm convinced that Remco hasn't reached the end of his development yet and that he can take the step towards Pogacar. Through performance, nutrition, and training."
Vanthourenhout spoke of three separate engines of the body to HLN, which generate energy for exercise, from the first, which uses fat and oxygen – basic endurance, to a second, more intense level where sugars and oxygen are used up. But he focused on the third, most intense of the three, as to where Evenepoel can improve in comparison to the World Champion – with Pogačar thriving during the most anaerobic efforts where his rivals falter as lactic acid accumulates.
"It's in that third zone that Pogačar is so good," said Vanthourenhout, having witnessed the new gradual seated attack that Pogačar has utilised several times since changing coach in 2023. "Remco's basic fitness isn't inferior, but Tadej has an advantage in that regard. And that's what we're going to try to work on.
"I think he pushed about 460 watts for fifteen minutes during his attack at the European Championships. That's immense. Pogačar can maintain that kind of acceleration longer than anyone else."
Vanthourenhout was ambitious but not unrealistic in his hopes, believing that a few marginal improvements could bring Evenepoel – in the one-day arena at least – up to a level where he could follow the inevitable Pogacčar attack in future and not be forced into an impossible chase as he was at the Worlds and Europeans.
"Remco won't improve by another 15%, but I really believe that in the one-day races – I'm not talking about stage races – he can become Pogačar's equal."
The next opportunity to see the superstar face off will come soon at this Sunday's Il Lombardia, the final Monument of the season. The display put on by Pogačar in Rwanda and the Drôme-Ardèche makes only another solo victory for the Slovenian seem likely. But an expert championship rider like Evenepoel won't be giving up, either, until his rival breaks him.
"Everyone knows I'm motivated to win Lombardia," said Evenepoel after picking up another silver medal last weekend. "I have to stay with him as long as possible with the legs I have now. I'm going to make the best of it, and I feel ready."
