Remco Evenepoel celebrated his third Vuelta a España stage victory with the latest demonstration of a spectacular comeback by tapping the side of his helmet to show, as he put it, ‘that I’m kind of mentally unbreakable’.
The Belgian has certainly demonstrated a huge degree of resilience after his GC bid in the Vuelta went up in smoke on the Tourmalet stage last week, taking a spectacular lone victory on the Bonaigua the following day, then making it into breaks to Lekunberri on stage 15 and then again en route to the Angliru on Wednesday.
That kind of turnaround has always made a major demand on his physical strength of course, but at the Alto de la Cruz de Linares on Thursday, Evenepoel wanted to show there was a mental aspect to it as well.
By taking off on the second last ascent of the category 1 climb, and then soloing to victory, Evenepoel has now racked up 50 career wins, claimed more triumphs - three - than any other rider in the 2023 Vuelta and is also now mathematically guaranteed to maintain his lead in the mountains ranking all the way to Madrid.
However, ‘tall trees catch the most wind’ is a Belgian saying and while Evenepoel’s response on the bike to a massive degree of media and public expectations could hardly be bettered, his tapping his helmet was a way of showing what he had needed to do that.
“I made that sign to show to everybody that mentally I’m kind of unbreakable. It’s always easy to pull somebody down but I showed my head is pretty strong, I have a super-strong team and a super-strong wife, and they help me be unbreakable,” he said.
His other gesture, forming the letter ‘O’ with his fingers as he crossed the line, was certainly no less important in the bigger scheme of things.
“That was for Oumi, my wife. She said if I took a third victory, I had to dedicate it to her,” he said, before explaining the reasons why he had attacked so far from the line.
“I felt like I was the strongest in the group and didn’t have to waste time,” he said, referring to his ability to drop all 16 of his fellow breakaway companions. “I just needed to go for it, my legs were super good, and I had a better day, like on stage 14 [to the Bonaigua].
“It’s another amazing stage to win, I took all the points for my jersey, and it’s amazing to end the Vuelta like this.”
Win number 3 in the Vuelta is win number 50 in Evenepoel’s career tally, and the Belgian first joked that as he would have no chance of victory on Friday’s flat stage, he hoped that to celebrate there would be a “nice cake tonight on the dinner table with a picture on the top".
“Seriously, it means a lot. I’m in my fifth season as a pro and I’ve already won a lot of races of highest levels, so I think I can only be proud. Every year I’m getting a bit stronger and a bit more mature and that’s the result of it.
“I think winning stages is always why you go to a race, and three mountain stages is a lot. It shows my shape was good. I think I had one super-bad day, and that was because my preparation for the Vuelta was not the best. But I’ve shown in the last few days what I can do when I’m at my best.”
Evenepoel’s initial defeat and subsequent series of victories in the 2023 Vuelta follows a virtually identical pattern to Richard Carapaz in the 2022 Vuelta a España, whose GC bid evaporated early on, only for the Ecuadorian to bounce back and take a hat-trick of mountains wins as well a definitive claim on the polka-dot jersey.
The one key difference in terms of Vuelta success is that at this point, Evenepoel might yet have options for a fourth stage in Saturday’s Liège-Bastogne-Liège-like trek through the sierras of Madrid. But he did not feel at this point that he would make that a target, he said.
“If I hadn’t won a stage here, it would be a big goal, but now I think I’m going to be more relaxed. I’ve had two very intense stages here [in northern Spain], so the most important thing is recover. After today, there’s no more pressure, and I want to make the most of these last three days.”
Even after the Tourmalet, the expectations for Evenepoel barely dissipated and with each fresh mountains win at the Vuelta, speculation about the Belgian’s options at next year’s Tour de France returned with renewed strength. Evenepoel took the question about what his Vuelta victories implied for the Tour next year good-humouredly.
“Maybe it’s better I don’t go”, he joked - before launching into how he had handled his fall and rise at the Vuelta on a mental level and what it implied for the future.
“If I’d had shit legs on a sprint stage then you can hide, but when you have a bad day on that type of [mountain] stage, you really pay for it,” he said.
“So I just want to forget that day as soon as possible, because it happens sometimes. When you’re the fastest guy in the world, you can’t win every sprint, and the best one-day rider doesn’t win every Classic.
“It’s like real life, you have good days and bad days and on the day when I needed my best legs ever, I had my worst legs ever.
“But I think after my off day on the Tourmalet, I had to turn the page and win stages. I’ve taken three, and won the King of the Mountains too, so it’s been an amazing Vuelta, even without the GC. I had a bit of a bad week in the second week, but I can just be happy and proud.”
