Following his victory as Flandrien of the Year on Tuesday night, Remco Evenepoel has said that his goal for 2025 will be to "just win a Grand Tour".
The Belgian won the title, awarded by Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad, for the second time following his first win in 2022 after a 2024 season which saw him score double Olympic gold as well as a Tour de France podium and a second world time trial title.
Following the ceremony, Evenepoel spoke to the paper to outline his goals and programme for the upcoming season.
"Last year, the Giro-Tour combination wasn't possible if you wanted to be in top form for the Olympics. Now we can consider it, but we will first wait and see what the course is like," Evenepoel said.
"If I ride the Giro, I will not ride Ardennes classics such as La Flèche Wallonne or Amstel Gold Race. I will never skip Liège-Bastogne-Liège if I am healthy.
"[Paris-Roubaix] was an idea. But that was before I had tasted the Tour. I won't be riding the Tour of Flanders next season. Milan-San Remo is still an option, depending on whether you choose Tirreno-Adriatico or Paris-Nice. We haven't actually talked about specific programs yet. We have talked about ideas and goals."
Evenepoel stated he wants to "have the feeling of winning a Grand Tour again" following his first at the 2022 Vuelta a España. He said that taking third at the 2024 Tour motivated him to win another.
"That will be the focus," he said. "Last season, I dominated the time trials. I also noticed that I am among the better climbers, but there are two even better. Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard are my new reference points. Everyone knows that my remaining goals are to win the Giro and the Tour, so I want to invest fully in that."
The 24-year-old spoke of reducing the gap to his two rivals next season, having finished nine minutes down on Pogačar and three minutes behind Vingegaard this July. He joked: "Let's hope that Pogačar doesn't make any progress" before noting that a realistic aim would be to bring the deficit down to five minutes.
Evenepoel said another aim will be to "dare to go for it on days when I feel really good." He singled out stage 17 at the 2024 Tour – the mountain stage to Superdévoluy where he gained 10 seconds on Pogačar and 12 on Vingegaard – as an example of a day he could've achieved more.
"In terms of feeling, it was my best day of 2024, even better than at the Olympics," Evenepoel said. "I was really good, but I was afraid to make a move. At 3km from the finish I rode away from those guys and that was a new situation. I saw that they didn't react and thought 'What is this?'
"I had a kind of panic: should I continue now or build in a reserve? That day I could have done more. If I get into that situation next year then I know that I have to give everything."
Evenepoel also echoed comments made by his Soudal-QuickStep team boss Patrick Lefevere that the team as a whole will have to be in top shape heading into the Tour in future.
"The Tour is not a toy. It is not easy to ride the GC there. Everyone really has to be 110%. I am not going to say that it was not good this year, but I do think it could have been better," he said.
"I am talking about the form of certain riders. Patrick confirmed that. If we want to be competitive against teams like Visma-Lease a Bike and UAE Team Emirates, we have to collectively raise our level. But they know that. I also indicated shortly after the Tour that that was the big thing to work on. It is up to the riders and the coaches to get that right."
Evenepoel will be looking within himself and across his team as he seeks to add to his Vuelta victory, then. However, he won't seek out victories by hiding away from Pogačar, who was near-unbeatable in 2024.
"I'm not going to adjust my program to Tadej's," Evenepoel said. "I actually really like racing against Pogačar. Besides being a great champion, he’s also just a good guy.
"I think it's an honour to compete against him and to be able to race with him. I see it as a challenge to try to beat him. I've already won races in which he was at the start. I hope that next season there will be one of those again every now and then."
