Tour de France runner up Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) will return to racing for the first time since the Clásica San Sebastián this week, tackling the Grands Prix Cyclistes de Québec and Montréal as he chases some lofty goals in the final part of the season.
'Project Canada', as he dubbed it on Strava, includes this week's two Grands Prix, followed by the World Championships in Montréal, where he'll seek to defend his world title in the time trial next weekend, and then add a second road race victory to his palmarès the following Sunday.
Already the double Olympic champion in Paris two years ago, Evenepoel also has the unique chance of becoming the first male rider to win both elite world titles at a single Road Worlds.
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As a result, despite taking a solid break away from racing after the Tour, the work hasn't let up for Evenepoel this summer, who quickly returned to a long altitude training camp to prepare for the final goals of the season.
"The time went quickly. It's been a month without racing – after San Sebastián I had a few days of rest and then since then, I was training at altitude for three and a half weeks. And then the journey here, it was quite quick, so the last month has passed quickly," he said on Wednesday evening.
"Everything has gone well. Training at altitude, it's always a bit different, a bit harder to manage the fatigue and training and everything, but it general it went well. There's still a little bit of time to get into the best form possible for the World Championships, there's still two weeks until that race. But obviously this weekend coming is going to be important for my preparation and finding my best legs, the best sensations, and be in the racing again."
Though Evenepoel has a firm focus on the World Championships, where two rainbow jerseys are up for grabs, and admits that the first races are primarily about "getting the feeling back, seeing where I'm at", he's not a rider who can ever go into a race without at least half an eye on winning.
"Generally, it's preparation for the World Championships, but obviously there's the ambition to win," he said. "In every race, I'll aim as high as possible. That's how I start every race, so I won't approach these races any differently.
"Especially Québec, it has that very specific final climb. I think the climb suits me better now than before. That's why I'm here with ambitions to win – that's always the case when I start races. We'll see how it goes, but the ambition is definitely there to try and win one of the two, or why not both?
"These are races that I've not won before, so of course I would like to add them to my palmarès. So I will start each with the idea of winning, that's for sure."
Why not both?
And indeed, the other 'why not both?' question on the table is the matter of winning both the time trial and road race at the World Championships, a feat never achieved by an elite male rider in the same year.
"How often has a rider won both the time trial and the road race at the same World Championship? Never," he said. "That was my goal last year, and it is again this year. It is something I want to do in my career."
Buoyed by his second place at the Tour de France, and indeed a fruitful Classics campaign before that, Evenepoel knows this is something he is capable of this year. The last few weeks of training, then, haven't been about reinventing the wheel, but more building on the form he already has, and shaping that around the final goals of 2026.
"I think it's clear that you need to have a bit more explosivity for these races coming, so obviously we've looked at that. We've worked more on the sprint. So the training has been a bit different to before the Tour de France.
"That's normal because these aren't races where you climb for 20km, these races have more just hills than mountains, so it's different," he said.
"But in general I think we've done good work, we've kept the form I had and added some finishing touches, so overall everything has gone as we would have liked."
The Pogačar question – and the Van Aert one
Like every big rider here in Québec, one of the main questions put to Evenepoel was about the absence of Tadej Pogačar, who won't be able to defend his world title after a nasty crash at the Vuelta a España ended his season prematurely. Without the imperious Slovenian on the start list, the expectation is that the Worlds road race, and indeed the GPs to come this week, will take on a very different shape.
"When Tadej is there, everyone wants to defend or just follow him, but it's not easy. I would say that now you have to come with new tactics. Clearly it's going to change [the racing] because normally you have to take control of the race. We'll talk about it again in two weeks, but obviously it changes things," Evenepoel said.
He gently questioned Belgian national coach Serge Pauwels saying "it changes our whole strategy", and was understandably coy about what exactly that might mean.
"For me, in my head, it's not always best to say it like Serge did. It's better to keep the tactics to yourself a bit, but that's his choice. So yeah it will change things, but that's what it is, so we have to do it without Tadej now."
What could also change things for Evenepoel is the fact that his compatriot Wout van Aert seems to be arriving at top shape just in time for the World Championships. Whilst there's debate over whether or not the course is too hard for riders like Van Aert, his success at the Vuelta has already started the debate around possible leadership struggles or divides in the Belgium camp.
Evenepoel, for his part, was characteristically diplomatic when asked about that topic – as Van Aert has been too.
"I think he found good form at the right time. Obviously, it's still a long way to the road race, so he has to maintain it, but he has enough experience to manage the gap between the Vuelta and the World Championships road race," he said. "It's great to see that he's ready and in good shape. I hope he has a great final week and comes out of the Vuelta in peak condition."
Whether that peak condition will be used to race for himself or to support Evenepoel, though, is another question, and one we probably won't know the answer to until the Sunday of the Worlds road race.
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