Why is Belgium getting it's hope up when Evenepoel is being spotted on the Oude Kwaremont?

To understand why this sighting on the Oude Kwaremont and Paterberg landed the way it did, we have to go back to mid December, when Remco Evenepoel laid out his 2026 programme.  

In the press room, you could almost hear the collective disappointment from Belgium: no Tour of Flanders for Remco, and a calendar built with one clear priority, the Tour de France.

In the weeks leading up to that announcement, Evenepoel had outlined two possible routes. Plan A kept the Tour at the centre, paired with a selection of Classics, which briefly sparked hope that Milan Sanremo and the Tour of Flanders might be part of the package. Plan B was the Giro and Tour double.

In the end, it was Plan A, but with a tighter focus than many had hoped. Only the Ardennes Classics made the cut. Evenepoel is set to begin his season at Challenge Mallorca in January, then continue building in Spain through February and March with Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana and Volta a Catalunya, before moving into the Ardennes on the road to the season’s main objective: the Tour de France, and a headline battle against Tadej Pogačar.

That conservative shape was not accidental, and Evenepoel and the team were quick to explain why they had resisted the temptation to stack the spring.

“It’s a new team and a new environment for me, so this year we should try to get through a normal season,” Evenepoel said at the media day. “Then we’ll see later. We discussed it a lot, but for this year it’s important to get back to my level with a normal winter. Last year I missed five or six months because of a crash, so this year I just want a normal season without problems.”

Head of Sport Zak Dempster struck the same tone, and addressed the absence of the Tour of Flanders directly. “Of course, as a Belgian he will always have the desire to ride De Ronde,” he told Wielerflits. 

“Whether you’re a cobbles specialist or not, it’s a special race. But the main reason Evenepoel came to this team is because he wants to go up against Tadej Pogačar in the Tour de France and because he wants to try to beat him. Now it’s up to us to build the best plan, one we all believe can make that happen. At the moment, we don’t believe riding the Tour of Flanders helps that goal. Remco is here to become a better rider, to deliver and to win big races. Let’s first focus on the races we can actually win.”

It makes sense. But it is not what Belgium wants.

Because the Tour of Flanders is not just another date on the calendar. It is De Ronde, De Hoogmis (the high mass). The day the country slows down, the day the sport feels like it belongs to everyone, and the day Belgians want their biggest contender to be on the start line.

And Evenepoel is not just any rider. He is an Olympic and multiple World Champion, who has already won Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Clásica San Sebastián, the kind of palmares that turns a nation restless. In Belgium, that is how you end up carrying expectations that few riders ever touch, and why his absence stings.

That hunger is amplified by a simple fact Belgium cannot ignore: the last Belgian victory in the Tour of Flanders still dates back to 2017, when Philippe Gilbert won ahead of Greg Van Avermaet and Niki Terpstra.

And it is not only about the length of the wait. It is about what Belgium got used to before. For decades, Belgian wins were the norm rather than the exception: six in the 1980s, five in the 1990s, and another six in the 2000s. Then the flow dried up. In the 2010s there were 'only' three Belgian wins, through Nick Nuyens in 2011, Tom Boonen in 2012, and Gilbert in 2017. 

So yes, the longing is real, and it sits against four decades of muscle memory. 

For much of this decade, Belgium hoped Wout van Aert would be the man to end the drought, but bad luck and injuries have blurred the picture. The question now is whether he can still match Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Pogačar in Flanders, in the one race Belgium wants back more than any other.

The question almost answers itself. When Belgium is looking for the next man to break the spell, it is impossible not to end up with Evenepoel.

Of course, the Tour of Flanders is a very specific race. Cobbles, constant fighting for position and the repeated sequence of climbs define the day. The first element, raw power on cobbles, is not necessarily where doubts about Evenepoel should lie, given the engine he has shown across disciplines. Positioning is the more delicate issue. We saw a glimpse of that last season in Liège-Bastogne-Liège, when he started La Redoute far back in the peloton and his race was done.

It is a concern others have voiced as well. Johan Bruyneel put it bluntly on The Movepodcast: “The Tour of Flanders… Remco is not Pogacar. It’s such a specific race. I don’t see the advantage, there are too many risks. Positioning is not Remco’s natural strength. And if there is one race where positioning is everything… even if you live there but have never raced it, you can forget it.”

And yet, if there is one rider who has repeatedly shown an ability to turn weaknesses into strengths, it is Evenepoel. His evolution as a descender is a clear example, as is how he transformed himself from a rider with limited punch into one who can now accelerate sharply when needed. When Evenepoel commits to improving something, the results tend to follow.

That is why one quiet training ride becomes a headline in Belgium.

Not because anyone truly believes a recon guarantees a start number in April, but because it briefly reopens a door that felt shut two weeks ago. The sensible plan says no. The national instinct still says maybe.

In a country that measures spring by the Kwaremont and the Paterberg, hope does not need confirmation. It only needs a glimpse. And on Sunday afternoon, Belgium got one.