Remco Evenepoel returns to the Vuelta a España as defending champion, but he was careful about talking up his prospects of carrying the maillot rojo to Madrid when he met with reporters on Thursday afternoon, stating his objective was “to go for the final podium.”
The addition of Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard to a Jumbo-Visma squad that already contained three-time Vuelta winner Primož Roglič has certainly complicated Evenepoel’s task on this occasion, but his caution was born, too, of his untimely abandon at May’s Giro d’Italia.
“To say ‘I’m going to win a Grand Tour’ is very difficult. There are so many things that can happen, I’ve been faced with that at the Giro,” Evenepoel said. “But I think I’ve improved on last year. Back then, I said I was going for the top 10, and then I won. This time, I said I’m going for the top three, which I think is fair.
“In my opinion, it’s very difficult to say I’m going to win because it’s very easy to have a bad day or to get ill or to have a crash. That’s the reason why I’m saying I want to go for the podium and stage wins. If I’m 12th on GC but have three or four stage wins, then it’s still a very good Vuelta.”
Evenepoel’s fourth Grand Tour appearance race will also serve as another crucial element of his ongoing education in the discipline. After targeting the Giro this year, it’s all but certain that Evenepoel will make his Tour de France debut in 2024, and this Vuelta presents the opportunity to measure himself against Vingegaard, who secured his second straight maillot jaune with such dominance last month.
“It’s hopefully a full three weeks where I can discover again how I’m doing in longer and higher altitude climbs against the best GC riders of the last months, with Jonas and Primoz in the bunch,” said Evenepoel, who insisted that he welcomed Vingegaard’s presence at the Vuelta.
“You can steal with your eyes. Jonas knows how to win the Tour, and he probably knows how to win the Vuelta, so I can copy him and take it in my backpack to next week’s Tour.
“It’s just something exciting, actually. I raced against him a few times, but not too often. It’s only a good thing for the bunch, for cycling, for everybody. It’s always a big challenge when you see a big name like that on the start line, so I’m happy he’s here.”
A year ago, Evenepoel made a fast start to the Vuelta, seizing the overall lead at Pico Jano on stage 6 and delivering fine displays in the mountains of Asturias at the end of week one. He went on to claim a crushing win in the Alicante time trial at the start of the second week. This time around, the Belgian envisages a cagier start to the race.
“It’s a bit the opposite to last year’s Vuelta; the first week is hard but not decisive,” said Evenepoel. “For the first nine days, we’re not super interested to take the red jersey. It wouldn’t be a lie to say if we have the leader’s jersey in the first nine days, we’d try and give it away to somebody as fast and as easy as possible.”
Like last year, stage 10 of this Vuelta is again an individual time trial, and Evenepoel will expect to lay down a marker there in what should be his first outing in the rainbow jersey of world champion in the discipline. Although Evenepoel conceded that his preparation for the Worlds time trial hadn’t tallied entirely with building toward the Vuelta, he insisted it wouldn’t prove a hindrance.
“I had to lose a bit of weight after the TT; that was the biggest change we had to make,” Evenepoel said.
“The World Championships course was quite flat, and you want to look at what is the best weight and preparation for that kind of time trial – but the good thing is that it was a long TT of one hour. Climbs like the Tourmalet will be the same effort in terms of power. It’s a different race, obviously, but the duration of the effort is almost the same.”
