It's all easy in hindsight. If he had regained his pre-crash form, nobody would have said anything.
The main question remains whether he would be at pre-crash form today if he hadn't had the setback early this year.
Do you know? I don't.
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The main question remains whether he would be at pre-crash form today if he hadn't had the setback early this year.
Do you know? I don't.
But apparently Lefevere knew, or so he claims. Then why did the team fck up?
It was predictable in foresight too, even for the half baked know-it-alls in this forum. I don't have the patience or interest to read back what was said in this thread at the time, but in my memory people were very critical of sending him to the Giro straight away.
I have no idea what he or anyone around him was thinking. Maybe they really did think he's the next Eddy Merckx and there's no obstacle he can't crush so they should just give him the biggest challenges to prove himself.
I think almost everyone questioned the idea of going to the Giro as a first race back. I remember saying myself that the Giro route didn't even suit him and that a slow buildup and trying the Vuelta as a first GT was much better.
I will admit that the Evenepoel hype machine trying to build him up as a contender before the Giro probably drowned out a lot of the doubters.
As far as I remember, one of the reasons that DQS didn't send him to the Tour of Romandie, was the likelihood of bad weather.
If they had sent him there and he would have crashed or gotten ill because of bad weather, I guarantee you that you would have heard similar criticism.
It's so easy from the sidelines.
Did Lefevere overrule medical advice? If he did, it's another story.
If they had sent him there and he would have crashed or gotten ill because of bad weather, I guarantee you that you would have heard similar criticism.
It's so easy from the sidelines.
Did Lefevere overrule medical advice? If he did, it's another story.
That's just a whataboutism. Romandie would surely be a better race to come back, although it's not very good as a Giro prep race.
Where Lefevre failed is that they didn't control their riders training schedule and if it were going in line with expected recovery. It's very basic that training too hard when coming back from injuries can cause huge setbacks and they should've been 100% on top of that.
I dont think anyone over ruled medical advice . These are professional teams
The issue is the kid is both overly confident and under pressure .
The time to talk is when he has won big not before. The talent these days in GTs is immense and he may never compete with it for the win. He may only win one week races and one day races in his career
If you want to dial down the pressure maybe stop talking about him for awhile
The pressure is perhaps killing him and making him take poor decisions. He is very very young and needs the space and time to learn without pressure . Failure is the best teacher too. How else can he learn
The issue is the kid is both overly confident and under pressure .
The time to talk is when he has won big not before. The talent these days in GTs is immense and he may never compete with it for the win. He may only win one week races and one day races in his career
If you want to dial down the pressure maybe stop talking about him for awhile
The pressure is perhaps killing him and making him take poor decisions. He is very very young and needs the space and time to learn without pressure . Failure is the best teacher too. How else can he learn
Wasn't it Remco's fault that he didn't mention the pain he was feeling early in his recovery? Maybe he shouldn't have been on his bike at all that soon, but that seems to be a medical decision to me. They took him off the bike as soon as it became clear that he was still suffering.
Well that is *** stupid indeed. But how much did they ask him even?
Yeah, I dont understand the talk about winning GTs.
Let him focus on one-day races and one-week races.
Let him focus on one-day races and one-week races.
Get fitness back. Give it a shot at a GT or a few shots. Then, if it doesn't work, focus on one day races and TTs.
I think the complete opposite on the order of those things. At least for the next year or so.
They let him go to Spain on his own, just after he got back on the bike. He isn't a doctor, he doesn't know what he's supposed to feel, and he doesn't know what the implications can be if he goes about it all wrong. This was mismanaged from start to finish. He wasn't a 33 year old experienced cyclist who already recovered from half a dozen of crashes. Not to mention the fact that had they taken their responsibility in the first place, he probably wouldn't have crashed to begin with.
I thought it was bad but that's just next level tbh.
Lefevre could not have waited a week before announcing this would be wasted season for Remco?…
He mentions Remco is mentally suffering, how demotivating must it be to read this before the timetrial again? (or knowing Remco it could be extra motivation)
Yes, I do not like the arrogance, but this guy is 21 years old and skipped several years in bike riding years. He needs/deserves better guidance, because his motivation to succeed is there.
They need to stop treating him like a God and start working with him.
Just a few close to home races wont do him good either. He needs experience. Racing. But with less expectations. Just to learn.
Maybe let him start the Vuelta with the challenge to finish it (if he does not fall)?
He mentions Remco is mentally suffering, how demotivating must it be to read this before the timetrial again? (or knowing Remco it could be extra motivation)
Yes, I do not like the arrogance, but this guy is 21 years old and skipped several years in bike riding years. He needs/deserves better guidance, because his motivation to succeed is there.
They need to stop treating him like a God and start working with him.
Just a few close to home races wont do him good either. He needs experience. Racing. But with less expectations. Just to learn.
Maybe let him start the Vuelta with the challenge to finish it (if he does not fall)?
To be fair, Pinot, Dumoulin and Froome also messed up their recoveries from injury. I would not blame youth for this. What I do see is a combination of athletes wanting to get back in the game, teams that want a result from their investments, and compliant team doctors who say what they think the teams want to hear...
I heard a story about him when he was playing football. The team and coaches thought the players should rest and a training session got cancelled. Remco went out and ran half a marathon instead.
Of course the team has some responsibility to develop and protect their rider. DQS has always been pretty good at this, so I find it unbelievable that they somehow failed to do this completely and deserve all the blame in this story. There is some information missing here and I think only Remco might have the answers to that.
And with the mentally suffering part. For the first time in his life he hit a wall with the crash and had to stop what he was doing. Sidelined for months. Complications in the recovery. A humbling experience that he will hopefully grow from and not break him down. Add that to the pressure and expectations people and himself have on him. Not easy. To be successful the mental aspect might be even more important than just being in good shape.
He is also not a 10 year old who needs to be asked every day how he is feeling.
The only way that the team could have mismanaged the recovery process was giving Evenepoel zero training guidance and cutting off all the communication with him. And somehow I doubt that this was the case. Or that the team told him to ignore the pain and just to keep on riding.
There will be no humbling experience as long as there are people willing to push the Evenepoel can do no wrong narrative.
Did Remco go far too deep on the Sterrato stage of the giro. He's been riding since that day like he lost a cylinder on his engine. Prior to that stage, he was right up there with Bernal and the best
He's not suffering cause he went too deep this one stage with sterrato lol.
Team management has fcked up on many counts. Lefevere said he would take care of him like his own son (a promise to Remco's mother), i would like to know how he raised his children. First season's schedule was "fine". But they failed to address the elephant in the room, his lack of experience (even as a first year pro) and his glaring lack of skills. They knew who they took on board, a kid with a burning ambition, a genetic freak, but with many shortcomings. In between his crash in Adriatica Ionica and the sterrati stage in the Giro (nearly 2 years in between) they did diddly squat at improving his bikehandling skills. He crashed on sterrati in July 2019, he had improved 0% by May 2021. After his crash in Lombardia, where they sht the bed again by not having trained extensively on his downhill skills and by not calming him down in the race, they sent him off on his own to Spain to recover. Then after some months of radio silence "Remco relapsed". Lefevere can pretend like he predicted this, but if he really did, he would have stepped in THEN AND THERE. "Sorry Remco, after your relapse, the Giro is no longer feasible, aim for the Olympics/Vuelta instead and work on your base form".
The team and Lefevere get a lot of flack for other things that get blown out of proportion, but with Evenepoel, they don't get nearly enough. They signed an inexperienced 18 year old who missed years of training and they did nothing to nurture him. They could have prevented his crash had they taken his shortcomings seriously. They could have prevented his relapse had they taken his recovery seriously. And at a time where it started to become clear that public opinion of him started to get tainted, they did very little to keep him away from the press, which is not surprising with a press attaché who is more concerned with looking like a fashion model on Instagram.
That's why i find the hate and ridicule that Remco is getting, both here and elsewhere, completely unjustified. Physically, he's (or at least was) as much of an outlier as any. But he was a diamond in the rough and needed polish. But it was team management that completely dropped the ball at every turn. That's where the team failed. Nobody here can say how his recovery should have been handled, but we can all see that it has been handled poorly. They have done nothing but downplay his lack of skills and experience every chance they got. The notion got ridiculed.
Are you suggesting that Remco should change teams ?
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