Remco Evenpoel, young king of Spain and Belgian cycling

Over the stages of the 77th Tour of Spain and the days spent in red, the color of the race leader’s jersey, the name of Johan de Muyinck began to emerge from a forgotten past in the questions posed to Remco Evenepoel. “Yes, I realize that I can become the first Belgian winner of a Grand Tour for a long time”, conceded the rider at the start of the third and final week of racing. Very long even. It was May 28, 1978 to be exact and De Muyinck had won the Giro in Milanten days after Eddy Merckx said goodbye to cycling.

The day after a final mountain stage, Saturday September 10, during which he was not at all worried by his runner-up, the Spaniard Enric Mas, Remco Evenepoel will – barring incident – resound The Brabanconne at the arrival of the Vuelta, Sunday in Madrid. At 22, the runner from the Quickstep formation thus reinstalls Belgium at the top of the Grand Tours.

The outcome was as much hoped for as expected: since his entry into the professional peloton in 2019, the person concerned has not ceased to be presented as the heir of the “Cannibal”. The kind of comparison to add a few hectobars of pressure to your shoulders. And which he still had to demonstrate that it was not out of place by removing the last doubts about its ability to shine in the three-week races.

A man never doubted it, his father. “Remco has always talked about Grand Tours, confided Patrick Evenepoel, a former professional runner himself in the 1990s, the newspaper The evening, September 5. This is his challenge. He won classics [des courses d’un jour] but a three-week race is in his DNA. And this Tour of Spain is actually his first, because last year’s Giro doesn’t count in my mind. »

Explanation. On August 15, 2020, Remco Evenepoel comes close to death after a badly negotiated turn in the descent of the wall of Sormano on the Tour of Lombardy. He disappears into a ravine and lands about ten meters below. Without news for long minutes, Belgium no longer associates “Remco” with Merckx, but with its contemporary with a tragic destiny, Jean-Pierre Monséré, young world champion mowed down at the age of 22 by a car during a fair in 1972 .

“This August 15 was a lucky day because our child could have died, admits Patrick Evenpoel. But he is there. Me, at the time, I didn’t really care if he was going to be able to get back on the bike one day. »

Nine months later, his son advances to the start of the Giro just recovered from his fractured pelvis and femur. For six weeks he could not walk. But for his return to competition, the Flemish press already sees him winning this first Italian campaign and prints his cycling pages on pink paper, a heavy nod to the race leader’s jersey. Pink, Evenepoel failed to wear it in the first week before cracking and giving up on the morning of the 18th stage.

“The white blackbird” researched by Patrick Lefevere

With hindsight, Patrick Lefevere pleads the error. For the Quickstep manager, Remco Evenepoel was not ready for this Tour of Italy. Despite the criticisms, the doubts in the minds of some – starting with an Eddy Merckx who dubs the Slovenian Tadej Pogacar, winner of the Tour de France, and finds gaps in the mountains for his compatriot – the roué Lefevere keeps all his confidence in the qualities of its nugget.

The man is perhaps known as the wizard of the classics, but he immediately recognized in Remco Evenepoel this “witte merel”, or this “white blackbird” that he often said he was looking for to fly high on the big towers. “I’m not going to deny that he’s an exceptional person. I hadn’t seen that yet when I’ve seen almost everything in cycling”he confided in the book “The Century of Riders, an intimate history of Belgian cycling” by François Braban and Quentin Jardon (Weyrich, 2022).

Patrick Lefevere is not the only one to have perceived it. Evenepoel’s talent burns the retina, attracts lust and gives birth to all fantasies. In 2018, the phenomenon won the title of European champion among juniors with a margin of almost ten minutes on the second. At the start of a race, we ask ourselves two questionsthen tell The Team Julien Thollet, the coach of the French juniors. When will he attack? How far will he win? »

Even more fascinating at the time, the Belgian has been pedaling seriously for a long year. On March 24, 2017, Patrick Evenepoel could no longer find his racing bike back from his day at work. The culprit is called Remco, went out for a “little trick” of 117 kilometers passing by the terrible wall of Geraardsbergen.

In the process, the son announces to his father that he is putting football aside, to follow his path in cycling, which he stopped in 1994 after a short two-year career. A gifted and necessarily enduring left-hander, Remco Evenepoel has nevertheless evolved in the national team for the under-15s. But he feels his career slipping on the Mechelen side and the bike calls it.

No Tour de France yet in 2023?

From this first career, the young cyclist would have kept the bad manners, those often associated with football by his detractors. The boy would be arrogant, temperamental and a bad loser. He is criticized for his celebrations, such as when he mimes removing the dust from his shoulder after a stage victory in the Tour de Burgos in 2020, as if to say “too easy”.

He assures us that his fall in Lombardy changed him as a man. But his blood can still boil very fast like when he strikes an arm of honor – not so discreet – to the Italian Sonny Colbrelli, his “executioner” in the sprint during the European Championship in 2021 whom he accuses of having counted his pedal strokes and of having relayed him little.

Read also: Cycling: the Evenepoel prodigy wins a Liège-Bastogne-Liège at the “Remco”

But since his victory over Liège-Bastogne-Liège in April 2022, Remco Evenepoel has entered the caste of classic winners and has changed in dimension. He also learned to control his nerves. Red jersey since the 6th stage of the Vuelta, the former footballer runs to the millimeter and does not exhaust himself in vain efforts. A specialist in time trials, he swallowed the passes at a steady pace and managed his rare failures on the slopes of the Sierre de la Pandera at the finish of the 14th stage.

A castle in Spain is already very good at 22, but Belgium imagines its “Remco” parading in yellow on the Champs Elysées, 47 years after Lucien Van Impe. “If it depends on me, he will not do the Tour de France in 2023”, warned Patrick Lefevere in an interview at Evening in the middle of Vuelta.

But the former accountant says “don’t be a dictator” and to be able to influence its decision if its rider really insists on lining up next July from Bibao. After all, Spain are doing pretty well at Remco Evenepoel.

And three for Richard Carapaz

Ecuadorian Richard Carapaz won a third stage victory on his own in the Tour of Spain on Saturday September 10 between Moralzarzal and the Col de Navacerrada. The climber of the British formation Ineos tamed the last mountain stage, north of Madrid, which included five passes at 1,800 m altitude, crossing the line eight seconds ahead of Thymen Arensman (DSM) and 13 seconds on Juan Ayuso (UAE).
Stripped of his status as overall leader within Ineos after conceding nearly 20 minutes at the end of the first week, Carapaz resisted the return of the group of favorites in the final. At 29, the Olympic champion has also definitely secured the best climber’s polka dot jersey.

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