Belgian cyclist Remco Evenepoel’s crushing triumph at the Vuelta a Espana on Sunday saw the 22-year-old finally deliver on his early promise five seasons after his breakout year.
“He took his time in the end,” his Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl Team boss Patrick Lefevere said.
Never one to shy away from the spotlight, Evenepoel’s celebration of his double junior world championships triumph at Innsbruck in 2018 demonstrated the level of his self-confidence.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Warning: Excessive consumption of alcohol can damage your health
Having trounced the opposition, he cruised toward the finish line stood on one pedal, hopped off, hoisted the bike aloft and crossed the finish line on foot urging the crowd to cheer him.
It was not much different at this year’s Vuelta, the consistent overpowering, the gulf in class and the swagger.
Evenepoel was born in January 2000 into a cycling family in Aalst in the Flanders region.
“We hardly had his stabilizers off for a month and he was keeping up with us,” his grandfather said of a 50km cycling excursion with a five-year-old Evenepoel.
Despite that his father rode for four years as a professional cyclist, young Remco favored soccer.
He was on the books at his beloved RSC Anderlecht and then PSV Eindhoven in the Netherlands and played for Belgium at the under-16 level.
“His powers of endurance were beyond the pale,” his national coach from the time said.
“He had a massive personality. We made him captain straight away,” Anderlecht under-16s coach Stephane Stassin said.
The general description was that he played like a man among boys and many are the anecdotes about him running half-marathons with Kenyans on the eve of matches.
Evenepoel would later say he was distraught when Anderlecht released him, but he did not dwell on it for too long.
Barely a year later he was double world cycling champion, winning the time-trial and road race, and had a contract with Belgian cycling giant Quick Step.
There was immediately talk of the new Eddy Merckx, which he brushed aside.
“I don’t want to be called the new Merckx. I’m the new me,” insisted Evenepoel.
The victories came thick and fast and he won four stage races in 2020 before his life suddenly flashed before his eyes.
At the Tour of Lombardy in August 2020 Evenepoel looked set to win, but instead he took a corner rashly, hit a bridge and plunged head over heels into a ravine, falling 10m breaking his pelvis and puncturing a lung.
“That fall took a year out of his career,” Lefevere said.
When Evenepoel was not selected for the Giro d’Italia or the Tour de France this season, eyebrows were raised.
However, a landmark triumph at Liege-Bastogne-Liege, where Tom Boonen said Evenepoel had ridden everyone into the ground, gave hope.
He won every stage race he entered last year and arrived at the Vuelta with a chaperone whose personality perhaps mirrors his own in the form of the swashbuckling world champion Julian Alaphilippe.
Alaphilippe’s job appeared to be to curb the younger man’s excesses through a mountainous first week.
Evenepoel emerged from a foggy Asturian mountain finish in the leader’s red jersey, and pulverized the opposition in a long time-trial at Valencia.
Key rival Primoz Roglic then took a gamble trying to close the gap and crashed out — leaving Evenepoel to cruise towards Madrid and his first Grand Tour title.
“It’s for my parents, my fiancee, my teammates,” he said. “It’s the result of many weeks and months of hard work and sacrifices and always believing in yourself.”
Shohei Ohtani and Clayton Kershaw on Friday joined their Los Angeles Dodgers teammates in sticking their fists out to show off their glittering World Series rings at a ceremony. “There’s just a lot of excitement, probably more than I can ever recall with the Dodger fan base and our players,” manager Dave Roberts said before Los Angeles rallied to beat the Detroit Tigers 8-5 in 10 innings. “What a way to cap off the first two days of celebrations,” Roberts said afterward. “By far the best opening week I’ve ever experienced. I just couldn’t have scripted it any better.” A choir in the
After fleeing Sudan when civil war erupted, Al-Hilal captain Mohamed Abdelrahman and his teammates have defied the odds to reach the CAF Champions League quarter-finals. They are today to face title-holders Al-Ahly of Egypt in Cairo, with the return match in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, on Tuesday next week. Al-Hilal and biggest domestic rivals Al-Merrikh relocated to Mauritania after a power struggle broke out in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and a paramilitary force. The civil war has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced more than 12 million people, according to the UN. The Democratic Republic of the Congo-born Al-Hilal
The famously raucous Hong Kong Sevens are to start today in a big test for a shiny new stadium at the heart of a major US$3.85 billion sports park in the territory. Officials are keeping their fingers crossed that the premier event in Hong Kong’s sporting and social calendar goes off without a hitch at the 50,000-seat Kai Tak Stadium. They hope to entice major European soccer teams to visit in the next few months, with reports in December last year saying that Liverpool were in talks about a pre-season tour. Coldplay are to perform there next month, all part of Hong Kong’s
Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernandez and Tommy Edman on Thursday smashed home runs to give the reigning World Series champions the Los Angeles Dodgers a 5-4 victory over Detroit on the MLB’s opening day in the US. The Dodgers, who won two season-opening games in Tokyo last week, raised their championship banner on a day when 28 clubs launched the season in the US. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts shuffled his batting lineup with all four leadoff hitters finally healthy as Ohtani was followed by Mookie Betts, then Hernandez and Freddie Freeman in the cleanup spot, switching places with Hernandez. “There’s a Teoscar tax to
RSS