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

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Are you suggesting that Remco should change teams ?

Won't happen, he likes it there too much. And maybe they were caught off guard as well by his performances in his first year, thinking they had more time to polish him... But at this moment i'm not convinced anymore that it was the best team for him.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

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.

It was the day after a match. The trainers never strictly forbade players to do something else as far as i know. What made the story special was the fact that he ran 13th overall (open class) without any preparation or specific training.

It's also not the first time he's had to cope with a huge setback mentally. When he was 13 or 14 he left PSV to be closer to home because his mother was very ill (i think it was cancer). When he was 17, he quit football all together, because he got sidelined at Anderlecht without proper explanation.

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.

Lefevere apparantly got mad at his medical team because they screwed up when he was allowed to go to Spain, so i think they... might actually have screwed up?

I think he's also experiencing that the peloton is going much faster now than in the first half of 2020.

It didn't seem to bother him the first 10 days of the Giro though. He set the course record in the Algarve TT and fastest time on Picon Blanco, both in 2020 by the way.

 

[Salvarani]

There will be no humbling experience as long as there are people willing to push the Evenepoel can do no wrong narrative.

I see what you mean now...

 

[red_flanders]

I think he's also experiencing that the peloton is going much faster now than in the first half of 2020.

He was lighting up Pologne and Lombardia before he crashed. Seems like people were going pretty fast then.

 

[Red Rick]

He was lighting up Pologne and Lombardia before he crashed. Seems like people were going pretty fast then.

They weren't going super fast then. It only became a big talking point in the Dauphine.

 

[memyselfandI]

I think he's also experiencing that overall there is a different speed at the GT's compared to week long stage races, different speed after rest days, different speed in OG year, at the Worlds aso. I think that his team is almost the best in one day races, maybe not best/built around him just yet for GT gc purpose, but is not a problem since RE is at least as much limiter for success as his team is. Plenty of work.

 

[red_flanders]

They weren't going super fast then. It only became a big talking point in the Dauphine.

I disagree. Plenty of folks were shocked at the speeds last year.

 

[Big Doopie]

They weren't going super fast then. It only became a big talking point in the Dauphine.

actually according to riders interviewed on the cycling podcast from the start of that season, they said the peloton was absolutely on fire in every race because everyone wanted to win or be seen (contract year?) before everything might get shut down. So no one was taking any race off or for training.

 

[Juan Pelota]

Why is he no longer doing the Vuelta? What is the BS!?

 

[red_flanders]

Why is he no longer doing the Vuelta? What is the BS!?

I didn't know he was ever scheduled for the Vuelta? I'm bummed he's not doing it as well, but he's young.

 

[Big Doopie]

I am bummed, as a fan. However, the most important is that he simply recover his old self - and frankly doing two GTs at age 21 was not something that was thought to be good.

let him first recover fully. Get back to 2020 form. Then move forward.

there.

is.

no.

rush.

unless the artificial one of competing with Pog.

 

[memyselfandI]

Get back to 2020 form.

Yeah sad to see that team is not taking another GT road here. Maybe they're taking step back a bit. TdF and Vuelta maybe for 2022 but not Giro. For Giro one could benefit from Vuelta in previous year.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Why is he no longer doing the Vuelta? What is the BS!?

I didn't know he was ever scheduled for the Vuelta? I'm bummed he's not doing it as well, but he's young.

It was an option they considered. It was never "on his schedule" as such.

 

[Panda Claws]

He's not suffering cause he went too deep this one stage with sterrato lol.

What about those intermediate sprints though?

 

[Big Doopie]

Yeah sad to see that team is not taking another GT road here. Maybe they're taking step back a bit. TdF and Vuelta maybe for 2022 but not Giro. For Giro one could benefit from Vuelta in previous year.

I believe @Logic-is-your-friend has posted that the plan is indeed the giro. It seemed to me the most logical. An entire winter devoted correctly. And we can hope for more normal amount of TT.

based on that a tilt at the Tdf in 2023 seems perfectly in line.

#norush

 

[Wvv]

Decent job, won't win a medal tho.
His time will come.

 

[GuntherL1]

Decent job, won't win a medal tho.
His time will come.

We'll see. Even in his pre-crash form beating Roglic would have been difficult. I'm sure he would have beaten the others though.
It wasn't a bad performance, but it's clear he can't mix with the very best, even on a track that should suit him.

 

[Tinnekeisabella]

9th place is decent still.

His schedule will be:
binckbank tour
tour of denmark
overijse
brussel
european championships

he said that the worlds suit Wout and yves better….

I just wish quickstep would let him race more, because In my opinion this is what Remco is lacking. He would not podium in the vuelta but gosh he could learn so much..

 

[yaco]

Assuming his form is good he should be selected for the world's - He can be a wildcard on that course.

 

[Red Rick]

9th is about where I expected him.

There's one reason I'm not sure about the Giro next year for him is the Giro is much less compatible with aiming for Paris-Nice, Catalunya and those sorts of races.

 

[Monte Serra]

Assuming his form is good he should be selected for the world's - He can be a wildcard on that course.

Remco is aiming for the European TT title, so Belgium can get a third spot for the World's. If that plan succeeds, Lampaert, Evenepoel and Van Aert are due to be selected (according to Remco). Otherwise it probably depends, Lampaert might be better than Remco if his form doesn't improve.

https://sporza.be/nl/2021/07/28/eve...t-ik-heb-weinig-fouten-gemaakt~1627460386280/

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Obviously i quietly hoped for more, but after his RR and the rest of the season i guess this makes sense. Already mentioned this in the Olympic TT thread, but all the young guys basically "cracked" today. Almeida, Foss, Vlasov and McNulty finished between 1m13s and 2m37s down on Evenepoel.

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

Obviously i quietly hoped for more, but after his RR and the rest of the season i guess this makes sense. Already mentioned this in the Olympic TT thread, but all the young guys basically "cracked" today. Almeida, Foss, Vlasov and McNulty finished between 1m13s and 2m37s down on Evenepoel.

I don't think it's just age. Keep in mind that McNulty went balls deep in the road race. Looks like he didn't recover from that monster effort. Which is normal.

Almeida didn't soft pedal the road race either, but doesn't seem to be on very good form. But, I guess, went all out.

Foss and Vlasov were terrible in both races, though.

 

[Mayomaniac]

I don't think it's just age. Keep in mind that McNulty went balls deep in the road race. Looks like he didn't recover from that monster effort. Which is normal.

Almeida didn't soft pedal the road race either, but doesn't seem to be on very good form. But, I guess, went all out.

Foss and Vlasov were terrible in both races, though.

Almeida, Foss and Vlasov all raced the Giro for the gc and only rode their respective NCs since them.
Abou Remco, didn't he use a clearly smaller big ring than most of the top guys? That was probably the wrong pick.

 

[victorschipolrijk]

Lefevre talking in the press about a wasted season.

It seems like he thinks he somehow has 0 blame for any of it.

No sh$t!!!!!!
He has nobody but himself to blame.

But hey, give him some credit, he got 6 year contract with his sponsor.
And, all thanks to pushing an envelope that the majority of sane people knew it was empty.