Remco Evenepoel powered to his second elite title at the UCI Road World Championships, adding the time trial to his 2022 road race victory and becoming the first Belgian to do the Worlds double.
Speaking like the new 'cannibal', Evenepoel said the time trial rainbow jersey was one of the main goals for his career.
"Another achievement unlocked," he said after securing the time trial rainbow jersey. "The next big goals must be to win the Grand Tours, the big WorldTour races – to try to win everything, but it's not easy with a super strong field in every WorldTour race. I like to improve myself and to look for all the limits possible."
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Evenepoel has been under intense pressure from the media ever since he won the Vuelta a España and the Worlds last year, with rumours swirling around the bigger-budget teams trying to buy him out of his contract with Soudal-Quickstep that runs through 2026.
When asked about speculation about a move to Ineos being nearly complete, Evenepoel's response was "Next question". When pressed about the back and forth in the media from team co-owner Patrick Lefevere and from his father, who is also his agent, Evenepoel reiterated he wants them all to stay quiet.
"I hope it calms down, the Vuelta is a three-week race and if I have to hear the same shit for three weeks it's going to be a long Vuelta.
"Sorry for my words. I hope it will calm a bit down. I'm the type of guy who is quite emotional and who likes to answer [with] the pedals. So I think today was a good answer, and I hope I can answer again in the Vuelta. Of course, it is a super strong field – I will leave all the rest and focus from the first day to the last."
The 23-year-old was sandwiched between his time trial idol, Filippo Ganna (Italy) who came second at 12 seconds, and 19-year-old Josh Tarling (Great Britain), who named Evenepoel as one of his idols.
"That's nice, especially from a talent like Josh," Evenepoel said. "It's nice to be an idol or an image but I can say the same about the guy who was sitting here (he said, referring to Ganna)."
Evenepoel followed the Italian on the 47.8-kilometre rolling course around Stirling that ended on a steep, cobbled climb to the Stirling Castle. The wind gusts picked up throughout the day, and as the Belgian tackled some sections, he said, it was hard to control the bike.
"I had quite a high front wheel, maybe a bit too high. But I trained on this wheel the whole week and I felt comfortable and wanted to keep it," he said. For someone about 63-64 kilos, it was hard to keep the bike under control, especially the gusts that were sometimes pretty hard."
Just as Ganna said he was going above his planned power for the whole time trial, Evenepoel also said he was pushing as hard as possible only to find out he was four seconds behind at the first intermediate check.
"It was quite a surprise because I was already pushing quite a lot above my planned power at that moment. But my terrain still had to come, with the proper headwinds and uphill parts still to come.
"My strategy was to push a lot from the moment that we completely turned back till the third intermediate time check. And then I wanted to push a bit less to the bottom of the climb," said Evenepoel. "I probably lost a few seconds on Pippo there because it was the downhill part, and with my weight, you have to keep pushing to keep the speed up.
"But then I think I did a very good climb, a very hard pace from the bottom to the top, always the same power. So I think the pacing strategy was just perfect, and it also shows out in the result.
"I just felt I had one of those days that I could keep riding on the pace that I was doing today. A perfect day."
