Teams & Riders The Remco Evenepoel is the next Eddy Merckx thread

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Did not have Remco converting to Islam on my 2025 bingo card.

I was already kind of expecting it, Oumi is of Moroccan descent and Remco himself spend time their and also in Qatar during the last months and of course took her surname Rayane. If it makes him feel like a more fulfilled human being then great.

Racing wise, I hope that he can return to a decent shape already in the Ardennes races and Romandie to built up to be in top shape for the Tour and then Worlds + Lombardia combo. Cycling needs as many top riders as possible because lately it has been just Pogačar and Van der Poel dominating which is not good for the sport even though I don't really complain as I like both.
 
Unfairly or due to his family's hype machine the Belgian hope was saddled with expectations before his true skills could be developed. The Olympic RR was the best all-around test under a ridiculous media microscope. He had the right mixture of skills, tactics and luck to pull it off in style. Definitely a proud accomplishment. The OR TT was a skill test and he beat the big wattage beasts with tactical riding and little waste of momentum; another great accomplishment. The WCRR where MvP skilled the world showed the true heirarchy of that type of event. He even crashed and finished with a f*cked up shoe and won. That's not Remco's level yet or maybe never. As for a closely contested GT we have to give him time to recover, again. At his current best he's not in the top 3 and new riders are coming.
All that said, he's already had a legendary career and could get confidence from that. He should pick his goals and ignore everyone else except Umi.
Just read his assessment of his recent injuries and recovery. He projects he will test Pogacar in the upcoming races including cobbled features.
Reading that and having a similar and more involved personal damage history from racing when I thought I was "ready" tells me he's still listening to the outside pressure. He's one more solid crash from getting a shoulder implant if he doesn't give it a year.
He'll likely have one in his later adult life as it stands.
 
its the opposite way around. The you men who only look at stats and goals scored are disussing whether Ronaldo is better then Messi, while those who have lived longer and seen them play knows very well that’s not the case ;)

But yeah, i think you are very much on point with the Pogacar vs Roglic vibe. How would you describe the Vingegaard and Remco fans?
There is a "or vice versa" missing in the first part of my post =D (And Messi is better ofc)

Vingegaard and Remco is a tough one. Vingegaard fans are most likely either Danish or they just don't like Pogacar :laughing: . Remco casts quite a wide net in terms of fandom, but I believe that the average age of his fans is a bit higher than that of Pogacar. I can imagine that he has quite a few Belgian fans who have been around for a while. Some of his fans remind me of the Ullrich fans in Germany back in the day, who also used to meticulously analyze every photo of his for indications of his weight.
 
Some of his fans remind me of the Ullrich fans in Germany back in the day, who also used to meticulously analyze every photo of his for indications of his weight.

This! I almost never think of old Ulle these days, but when people discuss Remcos weight it all comes back to me. And it wasn't just the fans, the media would go on about his weight too, his prep, how his form can be "interpreted" if you imagine a differnt weight and so on.
 
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