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

[Dazed and Confused]

Remco will be fine moving forward. I shall be looking forward to seeing him on the TT bike on Tuesday already. Remco on a TT bike is like zero kelvin, the reference, total order.

 

[Salvarani]

There was a 90+% chance that today would go exactly like it did.
Injury
Recovery from injury
Base
Training
Racing (better than expected)
His body rebelling against the physiological shock of the first races

Anyone betting on his form getting better for today was gambling on terrible odds.

I am not sure any of those are the cause yet though. Has he said anything after the race?

I want to see how he goes in Romandie.

For the most part of the race he was at the front. He went missing on the way to Redoute. There was a big fight for position. Did that make him uneasy in any way?

He still climbed Redoute alright. Had he been better positioned he would have surely been with Ciccone, Healy, Pidcock and Ala at minimum going over the top.

He was active shortly after and bridged a gap to a group in between him and the others. That became a small peloton.

I just dont know what really happened.

 

[Netserk]

I am not sure any of those are the cause yet though. Has he said anything after the race?

I want to see how he goes in Romandie.

For the most part of the race he was at the front. He went missing on the way to Redoute. There was a big fight for position. Did that make him uneasy in any way?

He still climbed Redoute alright. Had he been better positioned he would have surely been with Ciccone, Healy, Pidcock and Ala at minimum going over the top.

He was active shortly after and bridged a gap to a group in between him and the others. That became a small peloton.

I just dont know what really happened.

It makes sense for the Gulperberg crash to have been in a fight for position and that to affect him today.

 

[Red Rick]

I'd be very surprised if he's in the mix for the win in Romandie. Thyon should be a much bigger problem for him than the Liege parcours, and the TTs in Romandie are super technical as well, so I doubt he takes that much time to begin with.

 

[Cycling111]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1916593013989507084

View: https://x.com/laflammerouge16/status/1916593013989507084

 

[Lequack]

This is the thing with Remco and which in some sense makes it interesting to follow him. He is a bit up and down, humanlike in an era with aliens. He has some success, gets cocky and fans and media get hybris, and then there is a setback and we get our doubts about him.

He will fight back, as usual.

The Belgian Fabio Aru.

 

[QueenStagiaire]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1916593013989507084

View: https://x.com/laflammerouge16/status/1916593013989507084

Very generous to allow the others some TV time.

 

[Red Rick]

Very generous to allow the others some TV time.

Hilarious PR spin tbh

 

[QueenStagiaire]

Overanalysis coming up (probably not true): It does point towards him having a physical problem on Roche-aux-Faucons because if he didn‘t want to have a camera next to him he could just hide in the middle of the group.

 

[houtdffan]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1916593013989507084

View: https://x.com/laflammerouge16/status/1916593013989507084

What in the actual ***?

He gave up a potential second place so others could get air time?

Get him a psychiatrist to get him the help he needs! This SCREAMS there is something mentally going on. I do not want this to be something that hinders him any longer

 

[Oldman]

There was a 90+% chance that today would go exactly like it did.
Injury
Recovery from injury
Base
Training
Racing (better than expected)
His body rebelling against the physiological shock of the first races

Anyone betting on his form getting better for today was gambling on terrible odds.

6 hr race with Remco's team setting tempo many of those hours had to put pressure on him. They all disappeared on le Redoute and it took everything he had to get up. That he found himself near the front of that 3rd group for awhile is testimony to 1)how fatigued everyone was 2)how well Lidl, UAE and EF controlled that group; which also added to mutual fatigue.

 

[peterfin]

What in the actual ***?

He gave up a potential second place so others could get air time?

Get him a psychiatrist to get him the help he needs! This SCREAMS there is something mentally going on. I do not want this to be something that hinders him any longer

Lets just say that he was annoyed that a cameraman would follow him during the last climb . There was no way he would be second imho. He knew it was game over.

 

[Tim Cahill]

Surely that interview is some sort of piss take, maybe just a bit of tongue in cheek lost in translation thing like de lie with his cows

 

[VayaVayaVaya]

I don’t know that it was as selfless as he indicated, but I’m not sure how earnestly he meant that. He didn’t want to be filmed languishing on the back with no legs for second, and he’s right that the cameras should have been on those competing for the podium. I don’t think it’s cause to doubt his mentality. He’s always been combustible and prone to bad days. Seems like he doesn’t have the base and endurance for the long races yet. No big deal. He was bad last year in the Dauphine and very good in the Tour.

 

[peterfin]

What most people don't understand is the huge outside pressure this guy is exposed to. The whole nation is cycling crazy and he is god now. They follow every move he makes. At the finish, 10 Belgian journalist all ask the same question "What went wrong? How do you feel about it?" That's what their listeners want to hear. He answers all of them, the same answer, calmly. Tomorrow, the newspapers will be full of it. His stories sell. And everybody wants a part of it. I was in a music hall tonight, a show of Bart Peeters (famous singer in Belgium and The Netherlands) with thousands of spectators and even there Remco was mentioned. It's crazy.

 

[Wvv]

What most people don't understand is the huge outside pressure this guy is exposed to. The whole nation is cycling crazy and he is god now. They follow every move he makes. At the finish, 10 Belgian journalist all ask the same question "What went wrong? How do you feel about it?" That's what their listeners want to hear. He answers all of them, the same answer, calmly. Tomorrow, the newspapers will be full of it. His stories sell. And everybody wants a part of it. I was in a music hall tonight, a show of Bart Peeters (famous singer in Belgium and The Netherlands) with thousands of spectators and even there Remco was mentioned. It's crazy.

Was je op zoek naar een messias?
Bart Peeters winks aside, you're absolutely right.

I had high hopes for Remco, because I'm a fan and a believer. But I wasn't shocked or disappointed when I saw him letting go today. People underestimate what it is to come back after such a setback. And a race like Liège, certainly this early in his trajectory, doesn't lie. There's no shame in a step backwards again, given the circumstances.

He'll bounce back, don't you guys worry.

De sterren doen onnozel en de maan is een pladijs. Cheers.

 

[AmRacer]

So, Remco had a calculated setback 🤔

 

[Rackham]

Overanalysis coming up (probably not true): It does point towards him having a physical problem on Roche-aux-Faucons because if he didn‘t want to have a camera next to him he could just hide in the middle of the group.

He was totally cooked. We saw him off the back of the main bunch and chasing before they even started the climb. He was spent.

The rest (like deliberately slamming the breaks on to avoid the moto tv camera) was just Evenepoel doing Evenepoel things. That's not unique to him either, i.e. some big names (& even not-so-big names) in the past have reacted with a few hand gestures at the camera bike when they get dropped. It's a cycling classic.

 

[Berniece]

I'd be very surprised if he's in the mix for the win in Romandie. Thyon should be a much bigger problem for him than the Liege parcours, and the TTs in Romandie are super technical as well, so I doubt he takes that much time to begin with.

Indeed, unless he suddenly has a good day. But UAE just needs to make every day a hard day and he’ll crack

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

What in the actual ***?

He gave up a potential second place so others could get air time?

Get him a psychiatrist to get him the help he needs! This SCREAMS there is something mentally going on. I do not want this to be something that hinders him any longer

He was dropped from the group before he stopped to let the camera go away. There were no chance for him to fight for a second place at the time he slowed down “to give other airtime”.

 

[Pantani_lives]

What Evenepoel experienced yesterday, is the downside of fame. Media exposure is fun when you're winning, but not when you're having a bad day. It reminded me of French cyclists in the Tour. Laurent Fignon hid his face behind a newspaper to avoid the cameras when he gave up in the Tour of 1986. Carrying the national expectations can be tough.

The final became an exercise in how to hide yourself while wearing a golden helmet.

Now I wonder what he'll do in the Tour de Romandie. Normally he would be top favorite, but it's a tough course, so he might just focus on the time trials.

 

[KoopaCycling]

The optimist in me says he bounces back in Romandie. The realist will acknowledge it will be tough but useful racing.

 

[Berniece]

Maybe he should've went the Vingegaard route and put the focus on TDF after his crash. Trying to get ready for these races didn't help with building a wide enough "base" for this season. This looks like Giro 2021 all over again. I wouldn't be surprised if we get more of these similar situations later in the season too.

As a fan it's frustrating to see the sheer arrogance of Evenepoel to think he has more than enough talent to overcome the lack of professionality of his team. He could've been much further in his development, palmares, and career at a proper team. A team that didn't want to "find out" what it means to be a GT team, and everything that goes with it.

 

[Netserk]

What most people don't understand is the huge outside pressure this guy is exposed to. The whole nation is cycling crazy and he is god now. They follow every move he makes. At the finish, 10 Belgian journalist all ask the same question "What went wrong? How do you feel about it?" That's what their listeners want to hear. He answers all of them, the same answer, calmly. Tomorrow, the newspapers will be full of it. His stories sell. And everybody wants a part of it. I was in a music hall tonight, a show of Bart Peeters (famous singer in Belgium and The Netherlands) with thousands of spectators and even there Remco was mentioned. It's crazy.

Sounds like he shouldn't stoke the flames, but he sure likes the attention on his good days.

 

[KenFiamingo]

Maybe he should've went the Vingegaard route and put the focus on TDF after his crash. Trying to get ready for these races didn't help with building a wide enough "base" for this season. This looks like Giro 2021 all over again. I wouldn't be surprised if we get more of these similar situations later in the season too.

As a fan it's frustrating to see the sheer arrogance of Evenepoel to think he has more than enough talent to overcome the lack of professionality of his team. He could've been much further in his development, palmares, and career at a proper team. A team that didn't want to "find out" what it means to be a GT team, and everything that goes with it.

The thing is, nobody really expected him to beat Pogacar at Liege when he entered racing again at the BP. People (fans, team, Remco) got a bit ahead of themselves after the Amstel, but the end result is what was expected: Pogacar is unbeatable. So there is no real loss for Remco. Only a reality check of which I think will help him a lot towards the Tour. I'd actually be more skeptical about the Tour if he had won Liege.