Remco Evenepoel has said that despite taking over a dozen wins in 2023 and bringing his career total of victories to 50 this season, he does not view his year as a full-blown triumph.
On the eve of the awarding of the top Belgian cycling prize, the Kristallen Fiets, which the Soudal-QuickStep rider has already won twice, Evenepoel ran the rule over what has proved to be a rollercoaster season in an extensive interview with organising newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws.
In 2023 Evenepoel has amassed a total of 13 wins to date. These included Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Clásica San Sebastian, UAE Tour, the Road World Championships Time Trial title, multiple stages in the Giro d’Italia, where he also held the lead, various stages and the mountains title in the Vuelta a España, stage wins in the Tour de Suisse and Volta a Catalunya and last, but not least, the road race in the Belgian National Championships.
However, 2023 will also be remembered for the 23-year-old’s failure to secure a top final result either in the GC of the Giro d’Italia or the Vuelta a España.
“I can’t give myself a 10 out of 10 for my season, not even an 8.5 or a 9,” Evenepoel said.
“I’ve only won major races, but this could have been even better with the COVID-19 that forced me out of the Giro d’Italia, or a slightly better preparation for the Vuelta a España.
“Looked at from that perspective, I can’t consider my season to have been a complete success.”
Evenepoel remains convinced that he could have won the Giro had it not been for his sickness, describing his opening time trial, where he put around 30 seconds into all of his direct GC rivals, as his “best 20 minutes of the year. Sadly, getting sick is also part of racing.”
A victory in the Giro, too, would have seen him not opt to return to defend his 2022 Vuelta title, he said. After admitting that before heading to Spain, he found himself playing catchup, first training too little between the road race and time trial at the Worlds, then training for up to seven or eight hours at altitude in Andorra.
“You do that a month before a Grand Tour, not in the last 10 days,” he said.
Evenepoel also told Het Laatste Nieuws that the ongoing debates and rumours about his possible move to Ineos Grenadiers also played on his mind indirectly.
“It was really extreme for a while and I just wanted to be left alone,” he said. “I felt good in the run-up to the Worlds, but it must have drained some energy.”
As for his GC disaster day on the Tourmalet in the Vuelta a España, Evenepoel revealed with hindsight there had been some signs that things were not going as well as he would have liked.
“On Javalambre” - where he lost 30 seconds in the first week - “we had our worst day as a team, then on the rest day I only did half an hour on the rollers rather than 40 or 50 kilometres, a sign I was tired. After that, in the time trial [stage 10 at Valladolid] I was good, but not great, otherwise I would have won it.”
But although Evenepoel pointed to Jumbo-Visma’s strategy of identifying their rivals' weaknesses, rather than just focussing on their own strengths, as one reason for their superiority and also his defeat in the Vuelta a España, he also agreed that fighting back was his major weapon.
“Answering with the pedals is in my character,” he said. “Adversity brings out greater strength in me. In the Vuelta, I needed one bad day to take me to another level.”
Next year Evenepoel will definitively head towards the Tour de France, but trying for a third win in Liège-Bastogne-Liège is also possibly among his goals, as well as a debut in Milan-San Remo and Paris-Nice. The Tour of Flanders, though, remains far less likely.
Globally, though, Evenepoel also said that he would try to spend more time with his family and rather than start the season in January like he did in 2023, he would most probably begin in mid-February.
But regardless of his reservations, his third Vuelta a España stage this September brought his victory total to a hugely impressive total of 50 wins, and after his crash and ninth place in Il Lombardía, a last road triumph for 2023 may yet come for Evenepoel on Sunday in the Chrono des Nations. After that, holidays.
