The seemingly everlasting wait for Belgium's biggest bike racer to take part in Belgium's biggest bike race will continue through 2026, but it could well change further down the line, say some of the management closest to Remco Evenepoel at his new team, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe.
Since turning pro in 2019, the will-he-won't-he saga of Evenepoel's participation in the Tour of Flanders has now filled more than its fair share of column inches in the Belgian media. The second last twist of the soap opera plot came when Evenepoel was spotted training with teammate Gianni Vermeersch in the Flemish Ardennes this off-season - after he'd ruled out participation in the Tour of Flanders in 2026 at the Red Bull media day in December.
That sparked a wave of yet more speculation regarding his participation in the Belgian Monument. But in fact, even after Vermeersch had subsequently rejected the idea of it happening, Evenepoel's sports director and former Belgian national coach Sven Vanthourenhout has put an Evenepoel participation in De Ronde back on the map. The one rather important caveat? It won't be happening this year.
"I'm not ruling anything out for the future," Vanthourenhout said, in statements reported by Sporza, at the Velofollies exhibition in Kortrijk - the same west Flandrian city where, as conspiracy theorists will doubtless be delighted to note, Evenepoel's former Soudal-QuickStep squad always used to stay the night before the Tour of Flanders.
"His program is known, but I'm not ruling anything out for the future. I'm not talking about 2026, but I would be surprised if he never rode the Tour of Flanders in his career."
Whilst simultaneously opening up a door on a future participation, Vanthourenhout was equally adamant that there was no question of Evenepoel taking part in 2026, and had a full explanation as to why he was spotted training on and near the Tour of Flanders route a few weeks ago.
"We were working with Vermeersch in the Flemish Ardennes to test equipment. For us as a team, this is also a reconnaissance.
"Gianni brings a certain kind of dynamism to the team. He also gets on with Remco. There wasn't much more to it than that."
Curiously enough, Evenepoel had a run-in with Vermeersch a few years back about a broken wheel at the Benelux Tour in 2021. Evenepoel appeared frustrated at the roadside and then angry at the finish line, where he confronted then Alpecin-Fenix rider Vermeersch. Cameras did not catch the incident that led to the broken wheel but it appeared he felt Vermeersch was to blame.
That disagreement appears long to be a thing of the past, while Evenepoel's program for the first half of 2026 remains the same, starting with the team time trial race at the Mallorca Challenge on January 29 - the series' first in 35 years.
That's followed by the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana (February 4-8), the Volta a Catalunya (Mar 23-29), Amstel Gold (April 19), Liège-Bastogne-Liège (April 26) and the Tour de France (July 4-26). The World Championships in Canada (September 20-27) also feature. But next year could be a different story…
