Remco Evenepoel's decision to skip the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and therefore not complete a single day of competition between Liège-Bastogne-Liège and the Tour de France caused quite a stir, and earned the Belgian plenty of criticism. As we head deep into the final week of the Tour, is vindication imminent?
Evenepoel's form had been patchy – or at least difficult to read – at this Tour de France. The Belgian lost ground on numerous occasions, only to come roaring back again. On stage 10 in the Massif Central, he was dropped from the GC group but somehow ended up finishing best of the rest behind Tadej Pogačar, while on stage 14 in the Vosges he was dropped early on the Col du Haag but only conceded a few seconds on the line.
As such, he had been firmly embedded in the podium race, without ever inspiring much confidence in his form. That has seemingly all changed in the past few days, as Evenepoel took back-to-back wins on stages 15 and 16, the latter a time trial that he was always likely to win but the former a steep summit finish where he looked like he was floating.
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"I had the impression that during the Ardennes Classics I was a bit on the limit – that's really what I felt at Liège," Evenepoel said on France Télévisions' Vélo Club show when asked about that racing gap from late April to the start of July.
"After Liège, I really took my time to prepare, to lose some kilos. We knew that the Tour de France was hard in the last 10 days, so I wanted to use the first week of the Tour to find my legs. But it's better to go into the last week like I am now. There is still this hunger to go and search for nice things, and I think that helped, not to do any competition before."
This planned form arc was confirmed by Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe's director, Zak Dempster, who spoke to Cyclingnews in Chambéry at the start of stage 17 on Wednesday morning.
"When you catch a plane to Paris to see the Tour parcours, it's really thinking about how you can get the most out of it, and this Tour de France was all about crescendo – you could see that straight away.
"We really set up the preparation and the tactics with that in mind, and hopefully that will play out this week.
"It was a change missing the Dauphiné, but at the same time to see him do that, you know, go quite steadily in his progression, and arrive fresh and ready… especially given how hard Dauphiné was, I think it was a good decision."
Dempster described Evenepoel's first half of this Tour de France as "stable", despite the yo-yoing off the back of the GC group on multiple occasions.
"I think – well I don't think, I know – that both Florian [Lipowitz] and Remco both managed their efforts really well in the first part of the race. Even the stage where Remco got a bit dropped, if you look at the last five minutes of the climb, Remco was even faster than Jonas [Vingegaard].
"So the way that they managed their efforts, I don't think they've ever gone over the limit actually. There have been hard moments, don't get me wrong, but they were both managing their efforts well, and hopefully that pays off this week.
"At the moment it's looking good, although of course you never know what could happen."
Lipowitz is no longer in the race, having crashed out in Tuesday's stage 16 time trial, and his absence could have a significant impact on the rest of Evenepoel's race.
The German, third overall at last year's Tour, had already declared his co-leadership over but was still in the top 10 on GC and would have been a key point of support for Evenepoel as the race now heads for three days in the Alps.
"It's a definite loss," Dempster said. "But we still have strong riders, and there are other factors at play, for example the teams classification, which is close between Lidl and UAE.
"Then I'm sure [Paul] Seixas isn't happy with where he's at, so they're going to have to move the race, and I would say Lidl-Trek have stages they could win from the breakaways, which plays into the teams classification, so hopefully we can find a way to use some of those things that are happening. But at the same time, if we need to take responsibility, we will."
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