Remco Evenepoel arrived in Belgium late on Thursday night after three weeks of hard labour atop Mount Teide with the Giro d’Italia in mind, but by Friday afternoon, he had already delivered a tacit message ahead of this weekend’s appointment with Tadej Pogačar at Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
Rather than simply feather his way through Soudal-QuickStep’s recon of the finale, Evenepoel couldn’t resist running through his scales on the familiar, friendly confines of the Côte de La Redoute, the launchpad for his winning attack a year ago. His time on the climb, it emerged later, was the quickest of the day on Strava. “Seen this, Tadej?” trilled the headline in Het Nieuwsblad.
