'This win is revenge for last Saturday' - Remco Evenepoel back in Tour de France contention after superb time trial victory and GC time gains

Remco Evenepoel stormed back into contention for a place on the final podium at the 2025 Tour de France, winning the 33km time trial around Caen and marking a huge turnaround after a difficult opening stage.

Starting the stage ninth overall at 58 seconds, Evenepoel scorched the course and his rivals, moving up to second overall, 42 seconds behind new race leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates XRG).

If Evenepoel hadn't lost 39 seconds in the echelons on stage 1, he would be within touching distance and time bonus reach of the yellow jersey.

"This win is kind of revenge for last Saturday for the bad start we had for Tim Merlier and myself. Today I was motivated to prove to the team to get something back after the bad start on Saturday," Evenepoel said.

"If that time loss hadn't happened, I might have taken the yellow jersey here. That's a missed opportunity but the best young riders' jersey is also nice."

The Soudal-QuickStep rider again showed his time trial supremacy, carefully pacing his effort, despite the change in wind direction compared to the morning recon ride, took risks on the fast turns but also made sure he held his superb aero position whenever possible.

Evenepoel stopped the clock in 36:42, riding at an average speed of 54.950 kph, beating Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) by 16 seconds.

His other GC rivals lost even more time - Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) lost 1:21 after struggling in the flat time trial. Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) played down his GC hopes in this Tour after crashing out of the Giro d'Italia but even he beat Vingegaard by two seconds in the time trial, as did 11 other riders.

"With this victory, I've ticked off my first goal. I didn't expect to gain a minute on Tadej but I was able to beat the other GC riders by more than a minute. It's a bit like last year's time trial. Copy and paste.

"I'm one step closer to the final podium, even though the Tour is still long. With this stage win under my belt and Tim's win we can now relax and focus on the podium in Paris."

Evenepoel praised Pogačar on his ability to step up and improve his time trial performance for the Tour de France and expects the Slovenian to now defend the yellow jersey on the rolling stage to Vire Normandie on Thursday and then on Friday's harder double climb of the Mur de Bretagne and the hilltop finish.

He also refused to dismiss Vingegaard after his poor time trial.

"We know that Tadej's TTs are always better in the Tour than in other races, so I'm not surprised by his result," Evenepoel said.

"I was hoping for more advantage on him but it shows why he's the best overall rider in the world. When he has to perform, he performs. It shows why he is the guy to beat in the Tour de France once again.

"Jonas is the lightest of the three of us and so in absolute power, he has a disadvantage on this course, especially with the head and tailwind.

"I don't know if he will take this as a big loss. He's mentally strong enough to take things like this. He had a pretty nice advantage on me before the TT, so that will ease his pain a bit."

The Tour de France is the biggest race in cycling, and a Cyclingnews subscription offers you unlimited access to our unrivalled coverage. Get all the breaking news and analysis from our team on the ground in France, plus the latest pro tech, live race reports, and a daily subscriber-only newsletter with exclusive insight into the action. Find out more.