Newly crowned Olympic Time Trial Champion and Tour de France podium finisher Remco Evenepoel is expected to make his long-awaited debut in both Milan-Sanremo and the Tour of Flanders in 2025.
In an extensive interview with Dernière Heure, Soudal-QuickStep team manager Patrick Lefevere explained that it's currently planned that Evenepoel will take part in Italy and Belgium’s biggest one-day races next spring.
In stark contrast to 2024, where Evenepoel’s only one-day race of the season to date has been the Figuiera Champions Classic in February – which he won with a long solo break - the Belgian will likely have a Classics-heavy first half of the season in 2025.
In addition to Flanders, Lefevere told Dernière Heure the 24-year-old is also set to race another Flemish cobbled Classic as part of his buildup to De Ronde. Evenepoel will also make his return to Liège-Bastogne-Liège, where he secured back-to-back victories in 2022 and 2023 before being forced to skip the Ardennes Monument in 2024, following his crash and broken collarbone in Itzulia Basque country in early April.
“I confirm what I told you after this year’s Spring Classics, the idea is that Remco discovers Milan-Sanremo and the Tour de France,” Lefevere said. “He will also do Paris-Nice or Tirreno-Adriatico, as well as a Flemish Classic to prepare for Flanders. Either Dwars door Vlaanderen or E3 Harelbeke. Then he’ll go back to Liège-Bastogne-Liège.”
Lefevere also confirmed that, unsurprisingly, Evenepoel’s 2025 plans include a return to the Tour de France, a race in which he recently finished third overall in his debut, as well as claiming a stage and an overall win in the Best Young Riders classification. Any chance of a hypothetical return to the Giro d’Italia in 2025, which Evenepoel raced in 2021 and 2023 would look almost certain to be ruled out.
Apart from a brief foray in his debut pro season in 2019 to the Belgian cobbled Spring Classics when he raced Nokere Koerse and the Bredene Koksidje Classic, finishing in the main pack on both occasions, to date, Evenepoel has never ridden any of the Flemish one-day events.
For Belgium's diehard cycling community, his return to them is welcome, particularly after such a glittering run of success.
When asked what he felt Evenepoel’s potential for further improvement to be, Lefevere laughed and replied, “You don’t think he’s good enough as he is? There’s no need for him to get better. He’s already won two Monuments and a Grand Tour, he’s twice been [elite] world champion.
“He was leading the Giro d’Italia [in 2023] when he went down with COVID. He’s just got on the podium of the Tour de France and won the best young rider jersey. And now he’s Olympic Champion as well. All this at 24.
“Our goal was that he got on the podium in the 2025 Tour, so he’s already in advance of our initial plan. And who’s to say he won’t win it outright, even with Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard in the peloton.
“You can’t predict the future. Look at Jan Ullrich and Egan Bernal. They were both predicted five victories each in the Tour and they never got them. I’m not hoping Pogačar gets injured but I just hope that Remco has already had all the bad luck he’s destined to have.”
The Queen of the Classics
As for what's left of 2024, Lefevere told Dernière Heure that the only definitive races on Evenepoel’s current program are the Olympic Games, the World Championships and - presumably in part as a warm-up event for Zurich - the Tour of Great Britain [September 3 - 9]. Neither Il Lombardia, when Evenepoel had a very bad crash in 2020, only returning to racing in the 2021 Giro d’italia, nor the Canadian World Cup rounds currently feature on his provisional 2024 program for the second half of the season.
While arguing that Evenepoel could win every race bar Paris-Roubaix, Lefevere pointed out that history could yet be in Evenepoel's favour even in the most gruelling Classic of them all. He cited the case of the late Belgian cycling star Frank Vandenbroucke, also widely believed to be outside the ranks of those with a chance of winning the Queen of the Classics, “and the whole Mapei-QuickStep team was needed to chase him down to stop him winning the Hell of the North in 1999. So…”
Lastly Lefevere had some words regarding the ongoing rumours surrounding Evenepoel and his future at Soudal-QuickStep, when asked if he had anything to say to those teams currently seeking to tempt Evenepoel away from the Belgian team.
“I will never oblige a rider to stay if he doesn’t want to, but Remco is under contract until the end of 2026. Those who want to sign him know what he’ll cost. And in any case, I’m so sure that a team can offer him better conditions than ours. I’m not talking about money, but also his wellbeing. And if we are so rubbish [as a team] then why do the big-name squads keep trying to sign members of our management?”
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