Remco Evenepoel has admitted he shed tears of disappointment after losing any hope of winning the Vuelta a España but has promised to fight on and target stage victories.
Evenepoel’s first-ever race in the high Pyrenees proved to be painful. He suffered and was distanced on the Col d'Aubisque and could only ride his own pace to the finish on the Col du Tourmalet. He finished 27:05 down on stage winner Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) and slipped to 19th overall, 27:50 down on Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma).
“I’m okay, but it was a very difficult evening, with a lot of tears and crying,” Evenepoel admitted at the start of Saturday’s stage to Cyclingnews and other media present at the race, explaining the breadth of his disappointment.
“There have been two Grand Tours where I sacrificed everything. At the Giro, I went out with COVID; here, it was just a very bad day, on the day when you needed super legs. I was pretty unlucky in that sense this year.”
Evenepoel and Soudal-QuickStep have still to understand what sparked his ‘super bad day’ in the Pyrenees, but he admitted he had endured a long season, with the need to find a second peak of form for the Vuelta.
“Overall, I think my season was already pretty good and pretty long, so I think yesterday was just a combination of everything,” Evenepoel said.
“I really had to bury myself to get into top shape for the Vuelta; it just seems that it didn’t work. We didn't achieve the shape that I should have,” he said, keen to look forward and find new goals.
“It’s pretty frustrating, especially knowing that next year we’re going to the Tour. I feel like I couldn’t really test myself for the whole three weeks. At the Giro, COVID decided things, and then yesterday, I had super bad legs.
“There’s no explanation, maybe that everything is all a bit too much coming together.”
“On to the next one,” he added.
The next goal is going for stage victories. A strategy he confirmed by immediately going on the attack on the flat roads of Saturday's stage 14.
“For sure, if I feel good, I'll try to go for it,” he said.
“I think there are still many opportunities to go for, a lot of climbing stages. So if I recover well, I think I can get into a breakaway, and I can try to go for it.
“I already have a stage win, so it’d be nice to help a teammate win a stage, too. We'll put our heads together and try to fight for a win.”
