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

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When you see a guy like Wellens at the age of 33 (now 34) go Godzilla since joining UAE, and then you see SQS guys with arguably more talent (Schachmann, Van Wilder, Cattaneo..) cry for their mommies when Wellens (or Politt, or Bjerg...) hammers it, you want to claim the team or trainers are on the same level? Good one.

That Wellens is so much better now, says more about his time at Lotto than about UAE's trainers. It was super obvious imo that he was just living an 'easy' life at Lotto, making money and not challenging himself (enough) anymore. Why didn't he do heat training for example before? It's not like UAE invented it this year.

More than anything, it seems like riding for/with a super champion like Pogacar, gave him this extra boost of motivation to push his boundaries. Meanwhile you see the opposite at SQS. No one is really pulling the cart, nor does the atmosphere within the team appear to be as it used to be, and it reflects on the level of everyone.
 
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That Wellens is so much better now, says more about his time at Lotto than about UAE's trainers. It was super obvious imo that he was just living an 'easy' life at Lotto, making money and not challenging himself (enough) anymore. Why didn't he do heat training for example before? It's not like UAE invented it this year.

More than anything, it seems like riding for/with a super champion like Pogacar, gave him this extra boost of motivation to push his boundaries. Meanwhile you see the opposite at SQS. No one is really pulling the cart, nor does the atmosphere within the team appear to be as it used to be, and it reflects on the level of everyone.
Look if you can't be *** to do heat training when you're leader on your own team then that's just terrible professionalism.
 
What will maybe help remco is if Visma change tactics. If they ride slower towards last climb.
I mean no point for Visma to continue tactics. Pogacar might want to keep it hard. But he might also prefer to just consolidate and beat the rest on the final mountain after a relative easier start of the stage.
 
Look if you can't be *** to do heat training when you're leader on your own team then that's just terrible professionalism.

I should perhaps re-phrase. Maybe he did *some* before, but he took it to a completely different level this year, as he said after the Nationals.

Edit: can you fully blame him though? He wasn't going to win the Tour or whatever big race anyway. If you then race with a team that pays pretty well, you have a good life etc., you need some good incentive to walk away from that. Not everyone is Victor Campenaerts.
 
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not sure Remco sounds confident
Sounds like he had a bad day. Hope that's all it was. If he can defend the rest of the race, he can hang on to the podium. Lipo the only real threat left unless Remco loses it again.
 
At the same time, i think mentally he'll remember today. He continued to push and (temporarily) saved podium.
Had he stopped pushing all that was left were breakaways and prep for whatever comes after the tour.

Now he has something left to fight for. Aside from stage wins.
So even though it might be a blow towards future GT ambitions vs Pogacar, Vingegaard. It can also help him if he ever has another bad day. To stay mentally strong and as a result physically in the fight. Ofcourse he prob. can't afford another day like today during this GT if he wants to fight for podium. But in field without Pogacar, this might help him stay in a GT battle in the future.
 
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not sure Remco sounds confident
Don't know why exactly he should sound confident. It's really weird, looked like he was heading for a major bonk like in the Vuelta '23 but in the end he managed to limit the damages against 'his' opponents Lipo, Onley and Johannesen. It seems to me he is always focused on his watt-meter and he doesn't dare to go over his limit. Maybe it proved to be a good strategy today. Tomorrow we will know more; if he ends up 3d, I think he is main contender for the lowest podium place. If he again loses time against the 3 forementioned riders, he maybe should try to win stages.
 
Don't know why exactly he should sound confident. It's really weird, looked like he was heading for a major bonk like in the Vuelta '23 but in the end he managed to limit the damages against 'his' opponents Lipo, Onley and Johannesen. It seems to me he is always focused on his watt-meter and he doesn't dare to go over his limit. Maybe it proved to be a good strategy today. Tomorrow we will know more; if he ends up 3d, I think he is main contender for the lowest podium place. If he again loses time against the 3 forementioned riders, he maybe should try to win stages.

He did not sound that confident. Said it was all he could do today. To ride the way he did. Could not keep the pace.
He just sounds hopeful that if this was his bad day, that he can still podium. That he managed to salvage a podium fight.

Which is true. Ofcourse. Time will tell if this was a one/off. first real mountain stage. Or if today's showing is a sign of further things to come. Obviously i'm hoping he'll bounce back. It's been done before.

As already mentioned. and stated before the tour, i believed Pogacar would be throwing minutes around. And as such 1 bad day need not immediately needed to spell doom & gloom for podium/top 5. I genuinely hopes he continues to try and ride for a good GC. especially with stage 18 & 19 being so hard. Stage wins are nice, but i personally always thought them just bonus in GC battles. I know that's my isolated opinion, and ppl would do anything for a stage win in the TDF. But that's my viewpoint. Now of course i take a stage win over top 15 spot. But it gets debatable for me from Top 8 onwards.
 
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