On the eve of his debut in the Critérium du Dauphiné, Remco Evenepoel lowered his expectations for a result in the next week, saying he will support teammates Mikel Landa and Ilan van Wilder in the eight-day WorldTour race.
The Belgian champion is unsure of how he will fare in what is one of the most difficult editions of the race in history after suffering serious injuries in a crash in the Itzulia Basque Country in early April.
When asked in a virtual press conference on Saturday what his goals are for the upcoming week, Evenepoel said he wanted to, "see where the shape is at for the moment" but he has "no specific targets in terms of results or expectations."
"I think we have two guys in good shape here with Ilan and Landa, and if I have the chance I will try to support them as much as possible. But for myself there are no big expectations, just get into the rhythm again, and to try to get out of this race in a better shape than I will go into it - then it will be a successful week for me."
Evenepoel is trying to get back on track for his Tour de France debut after suffering a broken collarbone and scapula in a mass crash in the Basque Country that also put defending Tour champion Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) in the hospital for 12 days and forced the race leader Primož Roglič (Bora-Hansgrohe) out of the race with a knee injury.
While recovering, Evenepoel was able to watch Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) obliterate the competition in the Giro d'Italia, winning the overall by nearly 10 minutes and taking home six stage wins. While there are no guarantees he can duplicate that performance in the Tour de France, Evenepoel favours Pogačar's chances of being the first rider since Marco Pantani (1998) to win the Giro and Tour in the same year.
"I think all pressure will be on Team UAE for sure," Evenepoel said looking ahead to the Tour de France. "If you see how Tadej was racing in a very impressive way in the Giro, and with all their co-leaders coming in their team as well for the Tour, I think they have the men to beat and they are the team to beat. Next to that is Jonas, of course, because Jonas is the back-to-back Tour de France champion.
"I think especially for myself and for my team, there's no big pressure. I think all the pressure is on the other teams. We will have to try to follow - I think if you can follow Tadej one day, I think it's going to be like a victory.
"We'll have to see - maybe he's already gonna attack the first day, win the stage with five minutes and then the GC is over again," he said, laughing. "He's a special guy - the best rider in the world, so you never know with him.
"It's a big question for everybody how he's going to recover after the Giro, but I think he did a great race and he will be ready for the Tour, that's for sure. So it wouldn't surprise me if he wins the Tour de France after winning the Giro.
"If there's a guy that can do it, it's going to be Pogi," Evenepoel said, adding that the Giro "was actually very impressive to watch - amazing to watch, sometimes boring to watch as well, because the race was done with 60k to go, so to speak.
"I'm really looking forward to meeting him in the Tour and I'm curious to see how he will develop over the next month. I think he's professional enough to know what to do and his team as well - so it wouldn't surprise me if he's there already from day one to day twenty-one In the Tour as well - if there's one guy that can do to double, it's gonna be him I think."
Recuperation
After his crash on April 4, Evenepoel underwent surgery on his collarbone and was back on the home trainer two weeks after the crash and back on the road after three weeks. Just over one month after the crash, he was back to training at altitude. While he may not have lost too much fitness, he said it took some time to feel comfortable on the bike
"The first days in Sierra Nevada, it was still a bit stiff descending," Evenepoel said when asked if he'd been spooked by the crash. "Not feeling super comfortable on the bike, but I think every day it got better and better and I think the scariest feelings are gone, that's good.
"The injuries are still a bit uncomfortable ... it's still a bit strange in the scapula sometimes, especially on a TT bike when there's a lot of pressure coming onto my shoulder. So it's a bit strange, but I think it should be good enough to race and also good enough to take risks again.
"We will see day-by-day - if my body wouldn't have been good enough to race I would not have been at the start. My body is good enough to race but the shape will be another story, probably."
Evenepoel, Vingegaard and Roglič all crashed in the same pile-up on the descent from the category 3 Olaeta climb on stage 4 of the Itzulia Basque Country. Evenepoel managed to miss two large concrete culverts, including the one that Vingegaard crashed in but skittered across the forest floor at speed.
"The impact of the crash with a high speed and quite a long slide over the grass had quite a big impact on my body," Evenepoel said. "Also the surgery - it was the first time under [narcotics] - so for me it was quite a big impact overall. My shoulder, my muscles everything was quite damaged."
He said he didn't want to rush to get back into action after making that mistake following his terrifying crash off a bridge in the 2020 edition of Il Lombardia.
"I really needed the [recovery] time - the day I started outside is really the first day that I felt ready for it. So I think yeah, also with the experience of my Lombardia crash in the past where we rushed things maybe a bit too much, I want to calm things down and really never skip any step... I think it was a good decision to do it that way because in the end, the main goal of the season is still the Tour de France and it only starts in a small month and ends in only seven weeks.
"There's still a long way till the end of the Tour. So that's why we didn't rush anything with the bigger goal in mind - and always paying attention to not get in extreme fatigue or rush myself too much. So maybe it was not the best approach to get into [the Dauphiné], but I hope it will be the best approach to go to the Tour."
One of his main goals of the Dauphiné will be to test his comfort level in the 34.4km individual time trial on stage 4.
"I think it's going to be an important one to see how the pressure on the shoulder feels - to see if I can handle the pressure for a long time. I think it's going to be a good test to see how the shoulder reacts to force the muscles to get really narrow in the shoulder. I think my feeling day by day will be the most important for this week and not necessarily the results."
