'It wasn't my best week' – Remco Evenepoel not at the level to compete and gets dropped again at UAE Tour, turns focus to altitude camp

Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) has to go back to the drawing board after getting dropped again at the UAE Tour on the final climbing day up Jebel Hafeet, losing 52 seconds to stage winner Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) at the line.

Simply not at the level to compete with the best uphill, he'll head to an altitude camp soon after the race, with performance to be found after what can only be summed up as a disappointing week, with his next race arriving at the Volta a Catalunya.

The Belgian media present in the UAE made the trip 2km down the 10.8km climb to catch a reaction from their nation's star rider, who could only speak matter-of-factly about his gap to the leaders and was already looking ahead to the next targets.

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"Although the feeling was better than Wednesday," where he suffered from cramps and lost 2:04 to stage winner Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious) after a real off day, "But I have to admit: it wasn't my best week," said Evenepoel, as reported by Het Laatste Nieuws.

"I didn't reach the level I needed to compete for victories in both mountain stages. It turns out I didn't fully digest those first races [in Mallorca and Valencia]. I was also a bit sick afterwards – a runny nose. Although that's no excuse. I did ride a good time trial here on Tuesday, but I didn't recover well from that."

Evenepoel will be off to Mount Teide in Tenerife after a short post-race break, where he will link up with the likes of Florian Lipowitz, his planned co-leader for this year's Tour de France. With that stimulus in his legs, the Belgian has said to expect a different beast come the start of Catalunya on March 23.

"I always recover well after an altitude training camp. I also want to lose some weight gradually," he said.

"In Catalunya, which is a big goal, I'll be at a different level. We'll be at the start there with a large part of the Tour de France team."

Even after Wednesday's stage, his team were already looking to move on, but after he failed to impress once again on Saturday, only moving up to 10th overall on GC, well away from where he was in 2023 when he won the UAE Tour overall – his last WorldTour stage race victory – Red Bull were ready too to look to the future.

"Remco didn't have the legs to compete for the win. He did what he had to do all day. But the level of this competition is too high for Remco right now," sports director Klaas Lodewyck told HLN.

"There's nothing more to say at this point. We've noticed that Remco doesn't have the legs he had in Valencia. After tomorrow, it's time for a few days of rest. Afterwards, there's a training camp in Tenerife to be ready for the Volta a Catalunya."

For the moment, he can stay calm with the knowledge that it is only February, and that altitude camp has usually proved to be a place of big improvement throughout his career. But it does mean that Catalunya will hold greater importance, where he will face off against the likes of Jonas Vingegaard, João Almeida and Tom Pidcock for a truer test of form.