The hype around Remco Evenepoel riding the Tour of Flanders is very real. The Belgian press has gone into overdrive, with sports behemoth Sporza dedicating a whole section of their website to news about the dramatic debut. The biggest male Belgian cyclist at the moment is finally riding the biggest Belgian race of them all. It is a big deal.
The announcement came, quite oddly, before midday on April Fools' Day, leading multiple people to doubt its veracity, even hours after it was fully confirmed by Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe. However, this is no joke, and it does make sense; Evenepoel is a former world champion, the Olympic road race champion and a two-time winner of Liège-Bastogne-Liège, hardly a novice when it comes to one-day racing.
