Harry Kane’s future may be resolved, but the summer’s other great transfer saga rumbles on. The rumours linking Remco Evenepoel with a switch from Soudal-QuickStep to Ineos Grenadiers continue to persist, despite the Belgian’s own appeals for calm this week.
After winning the elite men’s time trial at the World Championships in Stirling on Friday afternoon, Evenepoel was again asked about those constant murmurs. “I hope it calms down, the Vuelta is a three-week race and if I have to hear the same shit for three weeks it's going to be a long Vuelta,” Evenepoel said.
There seems to be little hope of the rumours abating for the time being. While Evenepoel was powering to the rainbow jersey, after all, Alberto Contador was proclaiming to a live Eurosport audience that the Belgian’s switch to Ineos was effectively a done deal – "an open secret" – and that he was bringing a clutch of teammates with him.
Soudal-QuickStep manager Patrick Lefevere used his weekly column in Het Nieuwsblad on Saturday to respond to Contador’s comment, or at least to downplay the notion that Ineos were better equipped than his team to support Evenepoel’s Grand Tour objectives in the years ahead.
“I have heard that Alberto Contador, in all his wisdom, thought it advisable to declare on TV that Remco will ride for Ineos next year,” Lefevere wrote. “I am not going to waste any more words on that story myself but note that Remco has become world time trial champion as a rider of Soudal-QuickStep. If our team really lacked scientific knowhow, that would certainly not work. The time trial is not a discipline that you win with a wet finger.”
Lefevere also noted that rumours linking George Bennett with a move to his team remain just that for the time being. The New Zealander, currently at UAE Team Emirates, has yet to sign a deal for 2024. “At the moment he has only been offered to me by managers on all sides,” Lefevere said.
Evenepoel’s next outing will come at the Vuelta a España, where he is defending the title he won last year, and Lefevere insisted his rider could lean on a reliable supporting cast in Spain.
“I am convinced that we’ll now show again where we stand as a Grand Tour team at the Vuelta,” Lefevere said. “Louis Vervaeke and Pieter Serry will be there again, but after he already rode the Giro in the service of Remco, Ilan Van Wilder is not on it at the moment. James Knox and Andrea Bagioli also go well uphill, but all names are subject to change.”
