After months of flat-out denial came the announcement that turned out to not be an April Fool’s joke: Remco Evenepoel will make his debut at the Tour of Flanders. The Belgian superstar, the nation’s great cycling hope, will have even more pressure weighing on his shoulders as he takes to the start line on Sunday.
The decision was surprising on multiple levels, but also makes perfect sense. Evenepoel is of course Belgian and lives not far from the route; this is the single biggest Belgian one-day race. “The connection between Remco and the Tour of Flanders is deep and emotional,” his team boss, Ralph Denk, said when the news was announced.
It has not been won by a Belgian since Philippe Gilbert in 2017. As his team’s assistant sporting director Sven Vanthourenhout said: “He can make history here. That’s what Remco thrives on, but he can make it happen too.”
There was a hint of what was to come when he told Eurosport in February: “When I was little, the only races I watched were [Tour of] Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, and the Tour de France”. The profile of Paris-Roubaix does not suit him – but Flanders could.
He has already won Liege-Bastogne-Liege twice and usually focuses on the Ardennes Classics later in the spring, and a tilt at Flanders would carry him nicely into the fourth Monument of the season. And the 26-year-old is in need of a result having been foiled at various points throughout his year so far.
Strong showings at lower-level Spanish races at the start of the year and a time trial win at the UAE Tour were followed by something of a collapse over the rest of that race. He finished 10th, only two seconds ahead of his old lieutenant at Soudal Quick-Step, Ilan van Wilder. Then came a bizarre crash inside the final 500m of a stage at the Volta a Catalunya, while on course for a sprint for victory alongside longtime rival Jonas Vingegaard; he continued the race but that checked his ambition.
Not for long, however. Now De Ronde is on the cards; with it, a showdown with old foe Tadej Pogacar and three-time Flanders winner Mathieu van der Poel. It is the first time all three will go head-to-head at a one-day race in their team colours, rather than national kits. Even that is a rare occasion, last coming at the World Championships in Zurich 2024. Evenepoel’s compatriot Wout van Aert is another favourite; this will be the first time the quartet have all raced together since the 2024 Tour de France.
The decision to race is an abrupt U-turn from Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe’s communications department and Evenepoel himself, having repeatedly lied to reporters over the last few months that he would not start the race.
While that may make it look like a spur of the moment decision the team admitted it had been a long-term strategy designed to keep control of the narrative. He filmed himself on a recon of the cobbles in the depths of winter, wearing a neutral kit as his transfer to Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe had not yet been announced, and the news was kept under wraps for 100 days. And if he has been focusing on shorter, punchier efforts, in order to be a contender in Flanders, it would explain why he struggled on the longer Catalan climbs, too.
It would also have made sense if it had been a last-minute decision. Evenepoel is an impetuous, impulsive, emotional rider – it’s part of his appeal – and there has been a thread throughout the last few years of him always having something to prove.
It was most obvious at the Tour de France last summer: a horrific training crash the preceding winter meant he was always playing catch-up and culminated in poignant scenes as he handed his bottle to a child at the roadside before abandoning the race. Perhaps he has learned from that bruising period not to build too much hype around major target races, on the off-chance it all ends in tears.
But why now? Having raced for Soudal Quick-Step since 2019, Evenepoel traded the underpowered outfit for the commercial behemoth of Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe over the winter. And after years of being harangued by prickly former Soudal Quick-Step boss Patrick Lefevere to race De Ronde, Evenepoel has plumped for it in his first season outside the Belgian squad.
“I don’t care,” Lefevere, somewhat unconvincingly, told Cyclingnews. “I told him for so many years to do it, and he didn’t. Now he’s gone from us, and he’s going to do it.”
It seems hardly a coincidence. Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe finished second at Omloop Nieuwsblad, the first Spring Classic, through Tim van Dijke; Laurence Pithie was fifth at Dwars door Vlaanderen on Wednesday and Gianni Vermeesch fifth at Strade Bianche last month. All three, alongside Classics engine Jan Tratnik, will be part of Evenepoel’s support train on Sunday. They are a serious outfit centred around a serious contender.
While it may rankle with Lefevere, the decision makes sense, particularly given the changing profile of how the race pans out. The tempo of the Tour de Flanders – as with many hilly Classics – has evolved to be raced at full-gas from the start. Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates-XRG have driven that change; the Slovenian has dominated it, as he has everything in recent years, and is back to defend his title.
Bigger, more powerful and explosive, traditional Classics riders like Mathieu van der Poel are finding this harder to live with; but over the last couple of years the pure time trial engine of Evenepoel has evolved too. The 26-year-old has made himself lighter and leaner to better challenge Pogacar, and is better suited to try to ride Pogacar’s coattails up the Flandrien climbs.
Both times Pogacar has won this race he has made his crucial, race-winning move on the Oude Kwaremont, the long, steep gruelling climb where he has ridden everyone off his wheel. It stands to reason he will attempt the same this year.
And as riders try to adapt to Pogacar, it seems they are also following his lead. Pogacar has upturned the conventional wisdom of recent years that a rider can specialise in the Classics or the Grand Tours but not both; he has ripped up the script entirely. The all-rounder is back. It seems Evenepoel is taking note.
And so Pogacar’s pursuit of further history, of every record held by Eddy Merckx, may have widened the horizons of his rivals too. Vingegaard is – for once – not targeting the Tour above all else as he will go for the Giro-Tour double (although the Dane is unlikely to trade stage racing for the cobbles anytime soon). This is the first time Evenepoel will race a Monument outside Liege-Bastogne-Liege and Il Lombardia, the hillier Classics which have historically suited him.
Evenepoel’s decision to ride the Tour of Flanders is significant for its own sake, for his career, and for Belgian cycling. But it also taps into wider trends as the peloton tries to hunt down Pogacar, and that has mouthwatering implications for the rest of the season to come.
