New rider, new person, same expectations – Remco Evenepoel returns to Vuelta a San Juan

“Don’t kill me if I don’t win,” Remco Evenepoel joked at one point on Friday evening, but the expectation, as ever, is that the world champion will be the man to beat when he begins his season at the Vuelta a San Juan this weekend.

When Evenepoel, fresh out of the junior ranks, made his professional debut at this race in 2019, the young phenomenon was already the centre of attention, obliged to do his growing up in public. Twelve months later, when he soared to overall victory, Evenepoel was hailed in the local press as the ‘Messi of cycling,’ and no honorific seemed too extreme.

In the three years since that last edition of the Vuelta a San Juan, so much about Evenepoel’s life has changed, and yet the basic premise of his career is still the same, even with the world title, Vuelta a España and Liège-Bastogne-Liège now neatly inscribed on his palmarès. Winning often and winning big doesn’t sate the demand for more, it only amplifies it.

“I’m three years older. That’s the biggest difference maybe, but for sure, a lot has happened – a lot of victories, a lot of emotions, a bad crash in between as well,” Evenepoel said. “I think all those things have changed me and made me become a new rider, and also a new person.”

Evenepoel has moved from Belgium to Calpe to escape some of the pressures of stardom back home, and when he travelled to Argentina almost two weeks before this race, the promise of preparing in relative peace was surely as much a motivation as the chance to train in the heat.

One always finds one's burden again, of course, and Evenepoel was on stage at the Del Bono hotel in San Juan on Friday evening for a press conference with the local and international press. He looked to dampen some expectations, playfully chiding the race organisation for removing the time trial in which he forged his 2020 overall victory.

“It would always be nice to have some time trials, but we’ll deal with what we get,” Evenepoel said. “There are some other opportunities to try to take the win, but maybe if they want me back next year, they should do a TT. I’m looking at the organisation to bring back the TT.”

Jakobsen

Soudal-QuickStep’s training ride on Friday morning included some work on their sprint lead-out, with Evenepoel seemingly set to serve as the fourth-last man before Yves Lampaert and Michael Mørkøv guide Fabio Jakobsen to the finish. There look to be five clear opportunities for the fast men in San Juan, and Evenepoel suggested that piloting Jakobsen to victory was his team’s primary concern.

“I think, first of all, we’re trying to win a stage with Fabio Jakobsen. I think he has a lot of opportunities because he’s the fastest guy on a bike,” Evenepoel said. “Then I will try my best to do a good result on Alto Colorado [on stage 5 – ed.], but it will be difficult with all the flying Colombians here.”

The Colombian contingent in Argentina includes Egan Bernal (Ineos), who this week marks the one-year anniversary of his life-threatening training crash. The race will be Evenepoel and Bernal’s first meeting since they jousted in the opening half of the 2021 Giro d’Italia, and the Belgian has been impressed by what he saw of his rival’s training data on Strava.

“I think we will see the 2019 Bernal again. Hopefully, he will reach his top level in the Grand Tour again,” said Evenepoel, whose rivals will also include Daniel Martínez (Ineos), Sergio Higuita (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Miguel Ángel López (Medellín-EPM). “I’m just here to try to measure myself with these guys and to do a good result as defending champion.”

Stage 4 to Barreal has the potential to force a selection, and the strong winds so prevalent in San Juan could also create pitfalls, but ultimately, the race ought to be decided on the summit finish at Alto Colorado on stage 5.

The climb itself is long rather than steep, but the 2,624m altitude and exposed roads pose their own problems, as Evenepoel discovered when he was briefly caught out in an echelon there in 2020. “I wasn’t awake that day, I thought the wind wasn’t strong enough, but it was. I was too far back, too relaxed,” Evenepoel said. “This year, I will be very awake.”

This time three years ago, Evenepoel was using San Juan as a launchpad towards a planned Giro d’Italia debut, only for the coronavirus pandemic to disrupt the calendar and his subsequent Il Lombardia crash to force him out of the rescheduled race.

The Giro is, of course, the centrepiece of Evenepoel’s 2023 campaign, and as he eyed the striking Vuelta a San Juan winner’s trophy on Friday evening, he couldn’t help but evoke the corsa rosa. “It’s quite similar to the one of the Giro,” Evenepoel said. “It would be nice to have two of the same at home.”