Evenepoel's pursuit of time trial history almost a footnote in Worlds quest

Remco Evenepoel began his Canadian expedition with a sparkling victory at the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec and then followed up with a frustrated fifth place and a (very) mild flounce at the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal. So far, so Remco.

The bandwagon continues in the World Championships time trial on Sunday, where Evenepoel is seeking to become the first man in history to win the title four times in succession. At this remove and despite the presence of Filippo Ganna (Italy) and Stefan Küng (Switzerland) on the start ramp, it’s difficult to envisage anything other than an Evenepoel victory this weekend.

The Belgian’s record at the Worlds time trial is astonishing, with a medal to show from each of his six participations to date. Just twelve months after winning the junior title, he took silver behind a rampant Rohan Dennis in Yorkshire in 2019. After missing the 2020 Worlds due to injury, he took bronze on home roads in Leuven in 2021.

Evenepoel suffered the disappointment of another bronze in Wollongong in 2022, just nine seconds behind surprise champion Tobias Foss, though he had the considerable consolation of soloing to the road race title a week later. 

In Glasgow in 2023, Evenepoel finally captured the crown, beating Ganna by 12 seconds, and he repeated the feat in Zurich twelve months later, even if the Italian halved his deficit. In the intervening period, Evenepoel has moved into a different stratosphere against the watch, with the apotheosis coming at the Kigali Worlds.

Evenepoel arrived in Rwanda still smarting from his abandon at the Tour de France, which had included the humiliation of being caught and passed in the mountain time trial to Peyragudes. He achieved a measure of redemption in the hilly test in Kigali, catching Tadej Pogacar himself for two minutes and claiming gold by some 1:14 from Jay Vine. With the Paris 2024 Games factored into the equation, Evenepoel has won the past four global time trial titles. 

Although Evenepoel suffered sobering defeats to Pogacar in a succession of road races last Autumn, he found time to hammer home his time trialling superiority by also cruising to a European time trial title by gaining an eye watering 1.79 seconds per kilometre on Ganna. 

In 2026, Evenepoel’s time trialling mastery has been total. In his first race with Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, he led his new squad to victory in the Trofeo Ses Salines team time trial, and he has a 100% record in his individual tests, winning stages at the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, the UAE Tour and the Tour de France.

Ganna, Küng, Vine at al. line up against Evenepoel this weekend more in hope than expectation. The Worlds time trial hasn’t looked like this much of a foregone conclusion since Fabian Cancellara was in his pomp, taking four titles from four attempts between 2006 and 2010, with an Olympic gold in between.

Even then, Cancellara had future four-time champion Tony Martin drawing ever closer. For Evenepoel, by contrast, there doesn’t look to be an obvious emerging threat on the horizon, and certainly not this weekend. If Evenepoel rides to anything like capacity in the 39.2km test, then a fourth straight victory looks something of a formality.

But rightly or wrongly, we’ve long since started to take Evenepoel’s superiority against the watch as a given, and another time trial title will be seen as the minimum expected return from Worlds week.

Even before Pogacar was ruled out of the race, Evenepoel’s trek to Québec was mainly about annexing another world road race title. In Pogacar’s absence, Evenepoel’s credentials have risen accordingly. Despite the claims of men like Isaac del Toro (Mexico), Paul Seixas (France) and Mathieu van der Poel (Netherlands), and despite the presence of a resurgent Wout van Aert in the Belgian team, Evenepoel is the logical favourite for the rainbow jersey.

The smoothness of his victory in Québec last Friday seemed to bear out the hypothesis, as Evenepoel carved out an opening for himself and simply overpowered Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) in the two-up sprint despite dragging the Italian all the way to the line.

In Montreal two days later, Evenepoel was less convincing in what amounted to a dress rehearsal for the Worlds road race. He missed the pivotal move with 25km to go and betrayed more than a touch of frustration with Toms Skujiņš (Lidl-Trek), but he finished strongly en route to fifth place and bore his disappointment lightly after the finish.

“Better a bad day today than in two weeks,” Evenepoel said afterwards, refusing to shy away from the main purpose of his stint in Canada. Everything he has done since he placed second at the Tour has been with the Worlds road race as a project. 

As Evenepoel reminded us in July, he has the useful habit of hitting his mark when he builds towards a specific target. But that road race focus is unlikely to impede his progress towards another global time trial crown.