Upbeat Remco Evenepoel 'still growing' into Tour de France
The Soudal-Quickstep rider has recovered from a bad start to the Tour, even attacking on stage 7's final climb at Mûr de Bretagne and is pleased with his progress through the race
Remco Evenepoel ran out of steam in the final sprint for Tour de France stage 7 victory, but the Soudal-Quickstep rider is pleased with his status after a week of racing.
Evenepoel finished sixth from a small group at Mûr de Bretagne, and he now lies his second overall and at the top of the young rider classification. Indeed, he seems to be improving as the race goes on and expects to find himself in more favourable territory when the race reaches the longer climbs next week.
This Tour has not been plain sailing, though. On stage 1 he was out of position in the final, losing 39 vital seconds to his key rivals. Then on stage 3, he crashed close to the finish, though he was inside the safety zone and thus avoided losing time. Since then, the Belgian has clearly been improving, being in the right place at the right time and gradually climbing the general classification, thanks in no small part to his victory in the stage 5 time trial in Caen.
On stage 7, Evenepoel was in the perfect position to react to Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) when the Slovenian's teammate Tim Wellens set a high pace at the start of the final climb.
“UAE went off pretty hard and then once Wellens stopped his effort we were already with three,” Evenepoel said, explaining how he was left with only Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard for company. “And then Tadej was slowing down so I was thinking he couldn’t accelerate anymore, so I tried something, I just kept the pace high until the flamme rouge to see how the differences would be. And with nobody attacking before the flat part it means the pace was pretty high. I was felling pretty good.”
When Evenepoel pulled off, the group re-formed and Pogačar eventually won the sprint, gapping him for two seconds and taking a further 10 in bonuses. Finishing sixth, the sprint was the only place Evenepoel was found wanting, losing time to Vingegaard as well and finishing on the same time as key rival Kévin Vaquelin (Arkea-B&B Hotels), who is just 17 seconds behind on GC.
“I just missed a bit of legs in the final 300m but I think that’s a bit of the process I’m still in, of hopefully growing, so all good for now,” Evenepoel said.
Evenepoel will likely hope this weekend’s stages, where the sprinters are likely to dominate, will be less stressful, and after Monday’s rest day the race will move from the short punchy climbs of week one to the longer ascents of the mountains.
“I’m not bad in this stuff, but I think once the climbs get a little bit longer it will be good for me,” he said. “Everything went pretty well for the first week, we started off really bad, but I think for now everything is going really well, so I’m happy with the way that I’m growing in the race as well.”
