Remco Evenepoel celebrated his Olympic Games success in Brussels on Monday but is now back in training for the UCI Road World Championships and Il Lombardi, his summer of success motivating him for 2025 and beyond.
Evenepoel escaped to Greece for a short holiday after winning the Olympic road race but returned to Belgium for his fan ride on Saturday and then a celebration in the Brussels Grote Markt square, with other Belgian medal winners.
Evenepoel was already a star of cycling but his double gold medals have elevated his status even higher.
Jude Bellingham liked his celebratory arms-open pose on Instagram, which was seen by over 10 million people and even The Athletic has published a story on Evenepoel. Rivals Tadej Pogačar, Mathieu van der Poel and even Wout van Aert sent him messages and praised him for his incredibly successful summer of cycling.
“Sometimes I feel like they’ve already forgotten the Tour, but for me the whole summer is unforgettable. I’ve been able to tick off every goal I had,” Evenepoel told Het Laatste Nieuws before travelling to his home in Spain to begin his training block.
“It’s even more than I had in mind: with those two gold medals I’ve been able to surpass myself. Really crazy. Then you realise that it’s all worth it: all those hours of training, the rehabilitation after my fall, all that time away from family and friends...”
Evenepoel seems to enjoy training and peaking for a goal. He is still only 24 years old but knows how to do it well. The World Championships is his next goal, as he looks to retain his world time trial title and win a second rainbow jersey after his success in Wollongong, Australia in 2022.
Pogačar is likely to be his biggest rival for the rainbow jerseys in Zurich.
“Tadej is the best rider in the world, he will be motivated in Zurich. I can go to the World Championship with little pressure, I have these Olympic titles for four years,” Evenepoel said, after also showing off his new golden road race bike.
“But if I go to a World Championship, it will be to aim high. I have a chance to win both titles: both courses suit me and the Belgian team will be very strong. Nothing is sure but I will definitely try.”
Evenepoel’s final goal of 2024 will be Il Lombardia. He crashed out in 2020, fracturing his hip and sowing his career development. He also crashed in 2023 and so wants to return to complete a chapter of his career.
“I hope to do well there and not fall like last year, so that I can add that race to my list of achievements. That's the only race I have to win to finish a story and put a big point at the end of that book. That's something that lives with me,” he explained.
Grand Tours the focus in 2025
Evenepoel is also thinking ahead to 2025 and the Tour de France. He has begun to study his build-up and performance from 2024 and wants to improve.
"In the Tour I was able to push until the last day. In Paris I was able to rise above the pain. I don't think I can improve in one-day races or in a time trial. I’m at one hundred percent,” he said. "The only place to improve is in Grand Tours, with specific preparation.
“My future will be focused on the Giro and the Tour. I said from the beginning of my career that my dream was to win the three big Tours. Third place in the Tour showed me that it’s possible. Also, because my preparation was not one hundred percent after the crash at Itzulia Basque Country. During the rehabilitation I gained some weight by doing exercises for my shoulder and I had to lose that again afterwards.”
Evenepoel believes losing some muscle mass can help him in the mountains. He won the first time trial in the Tour de France, beating Pogačar by 12 seconds and Jonas Vingegaard by 37 seconds but then lost nine minutes in the mountains.
“You don’t win a Grand Tour in a time trial, you win on the cols, and especially on the uphill finishes,” he pointed out.
“We have to find the balance where I can still compete for a win in the time trial and at the same time be 3, 4 or 5 percent better uphill. I think that is possible with a weight of 62 kilogrammes.
“I pushed the same watts in all the mountain stages, always around 6.1, 6.2 or 6.3 watts per kilo. That’s exceptional and was needed to compete with Tadej and Jonas. That gives me confidence. If I could get a little better... But I’m also keeping my feet on the ground: Tadej is still at a different level.”
Evenepoel is not obsessed about just the Tour de France and could even return to the Giro d’Italia in the years to come, but not to do the double like Pogačar.
“The Giro and the Tour? Both are difficult unless you're Pogačar, but that's still too much for me. We're going to wait for the routes before deciding, there's no pressure,” he said.
Soudal-QuickStep team manager Patrick Lefevere recently suggested that Evenepoel could ride Milan-San Remo and the Tour of Flanders but that would complicate plans for the Tour de France and the Ardennes Classics.
"I didn't expect that to come out. We all know Patrick. He can be an open book sometimes,” Evenepoel said, suggesting that he will follow his own logic and decide his race programme, not his team manager.
“We have not really talked about it yet. If I want to do those races, I should not think about the Ardennes Classics anymore and that would be too much.
“The preparation for the Tour will always have priority. If I could choose, I would like to win the Tour once, because it is the biggest and the most beautiful, but before I start thinking about the Tour of Flanders, I would rather win the three major Tours first. For me it is clear: if I really want to go for the Tour, I will have to put the Classics aside for a bit.”
