Remco Evenepoel and Florian Lipowitz offered a united front against any probing questions about a possible Tour de France rivalry inside Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, refuting any suggestion that they will clash as they both fight for a place on their final podium in Paris.
"I know where you want to go," Evenepoel said, rebuking a subtle question from a Dutch journalist about individual goals, during the big-rider press conference in Barcelona on Thursday.
"You want to hear me say I want to be on the podium and hear Florian say he wants to be on the podium. Of course, we want to be on the podium, but whether it's him or myself, if we do it in a good way without this negative energy, it's good for both of us and for the team.
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"We both want to do what we already did in the past: to be on the podium behind Tadej and Jonas. Then be up there as much as possible for stage wins as well."
Lipowitz followed a similar line, with a slightly more philosophical approach.
"If we do our best every day, we should be happy with the outcome," the German rider said.
"We'll see where we are after three weeks. If we don't make any mistakes, we have to be happy with any result."
Further questions about what Evenepoel and Lipowitz want to prove to themselves and to other people and about what the two could learn from each other further seemed to irritate Evenepoel.
"Nothing," Evenepoel responded. "I don't know what to say.
"We don't need to learn anything from each other; we just need to be ourselves. We go to the Tour with two leaders, with two different characteristics, and we'll do our own thing in our own way.
"I'm happy with who I am and don't want to change that. I think Lipo is, too. It's a strange question…"
Evenepoel was clear about wanting to win a stage during the 2026 Tour, picking the stage 16 time trial as a natural goal. But he was evasive about the Red Bull team time trial race strategy, where Red Bull are one of the favourites but where the Evenepoel-Lipowitz partnership will be first tested.
"I'm not sure if I can reveal our race strategy. You'll see. The start order is the start order, and the finish order is the finish order. We won't reveal much more," Evenepoel said.
The Belgian was more open early in the press conference, when talking about his relationship with Lipowitz and how it has been built at training camps and at the Volta a Catalunya in March, on the same roads as the opening stages of the Tour.
"We've known for a long time that we'd start the Tour together; it's something we're prepared for," he said.
"We rode Catalunya together, and Florian was second, and I was fifth. There was one day we had to work for each other, and we made a change and a sacrifice, and it ended well. There's nothing special to mention anymore from my side.
"We showed we worked well together, so there's not much to add," Lipowitz added.
"We can also show in the Tour now that we can work together and that we will support each other."
Lipowitz and Evenepoel know that their real Tour podium rivals are Tadej Pogačar, Jonas Vingegaard and Paul Seixas.
"Those three showed this year that they're super strong, but as a team, we'll also show in the Tour that we prepared well too," Lipowitz said.
"The race will tell. They are on a really good level, but I hope we will also show good legs."
To that, Evenepoel gave his thumbs up to that statement of unity and intention.
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