The dust has barely settled on Tadej Pogačar's Giro d'Italia-Tour de France double this season but it's now emerged another major GC contender could well be in the running to at least take part in both races in 2025: Remco Evenepoel.
According to Patrick Lefevere, Soudal-QuickStep's longstanding and outspoken team manager, there is a "realistic option" that Evenepoel will return to the Italian Grand Tour, prior to doubling that up with the Tour de France in July.
Evenepoel last raced the Giro d'Italia in 2023, but had to abandon the race for a second time in three years after he and multiple teammates went down with COVID-19. His debut participation in the Tour de France this summer was a major triumph, seeing him clinch both third overall and a stage win, as well as the Best Young Rider's jersey.
In a lengthy interview with Dernière Heure, Lefevere also discussed the interminable rumours surrounding Evenepoel switching teams in 2025, saying "Four years ago it was Ineos, now it's Red Bull. Tomorrow it'll be what, UAE? Honestly, I'm a bit fed up with the whole story."
Lefevere was notably more enthusiastic about the potential prospect of Evenepoel racing the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France back-to-back, telling the Belgian newspaper, "We had already aired the possibility this year and Remco was very taken with the idea, but his trainer changed his plans. That said, it's a realistic option for 2025."
"We saw it was possible to do both, because Pogačar managed it. The Slovenian's example could act as a source of inspiration for Remco."
The idea of a Giro-Tour double for Evenepoel in 2024 already surfaced briefly last October after the Tour presentation, but with the Olympic Games another target this summer, it was finally turned down.
Lefevere admitted that such a radical change of plan would imply a very different build-up to previous seasons, only remotely comparable to 2023, when Evenepoel raced the Giro and then returned to the Vuelta a España to combine two three-week stage races for the first and to date only time in his career.
While Pogačar raced a total of 12 days before the Giro d'Italia, Evenepoel would have to hit top form in mid-April, Lefevere said and would likely race Milan-San Remo before going onto Italy's Grand Tour.
Plenty of Belgian fans would be delighted to see the World and Olympic Time Trial Champion follow Pogačar's tracks in another way and race the Tour of Flanders. But Lefevere indirectly rejected the idea for now, or at the very least, combining San Remo and the Ronde.
"He's not overly in agreement with that particular idea," he told Dernière Heure. This year, we already hesitated to put him in Sanremo, because it's a 300-kilometre race and that takes a lot out of you."
"But cycling has changed, riders no longer need to do La Primavera as a warm-up race. They train differently. For sure one day he'll do Flanders and Milan-San Remo, but maybe when he's achieved his biggest target of all: winning all three Grand Tours."
"Afterwards, we'd see. Above all, we have to be sure that he continues to enjoy himself."
Perhaps partly as a result of Evenepoel's seemingly unstoppable run of success, most recently in the World Time Trial Championships, the transfer rumours continue to swirl unabated. But Lefevere continued to roundly reject the idea.
"It's not something we intend to happen, no way! And it's been a while since there's been any registered post on my desk saying that another team wants to talk. So that's not even a subject for discussion."
"On a sporting level, what can he gain elsewhere? We've maybe got less money than elsewhere, but he's going well here and our relationship is built on trust."
"Look at the palmares. In 2026 he'll be 26, That'd maybe be the good moment to go looking for money. But maybe by that time, we'll have more financial backing too."
A definitive decision on Evenepoel's 2025 season will not be long in coming, according to Lefevere. The main targets will be decided in October in team meetings, with the fine-tuning coming a little later in the year.
The 2025 Tour de France route presentation is currently set for October 29, with the equivalent unveiling of what's in store next May in the Giro d'Italia due on an as-yet-unconfirmed date in mid-November.
Come what may, Evenepoel is fully focussed on another 'double' - combining his recently won Worlds time trial gold with regaining the World Championship road race title on Sunday with some ultra-tough training rides.
This week the idea of doing a 'homage' ride in the environs of the Swiss town of Sankt Moritz, where compatriot Johan Museeuw trained just a few days before winning the Worlds in Lugano in 1996, has been quietly dropped when it turned out Sankt Moritz was too far from his current base in Switzerland. But Evenepoel is still expected to put in a seven-hour training ride on Wednesday as the countdown to the ultra-long (273km) Worlds in Zurich looms.
Like Evenepoel, Museeuw was also a rider with Lefevere back in the 1990s, but Lefevere is adamant that the younger pro is already in a class of his own.
"If you look at Remco's palmares and the medals he's won, only one conclusion is possible. He's the best rider who ever raced for me," Lefevere concluded.
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