'Not the time for extras' - Evenepoel rules out Milan-San Remo debut in 2026

Remco Evenepoel was firm when the question was put to him after winning the Volta Comunitat Valenciana, insisting that he would resist the temptation to make his Milan-San Remo debut on March 21.

“After the UAE Tour, there will be a long altitude training camp, so I definitely won’t be adding Milan-San Remo to my schedule,” Evenepoel said on Sunday evening.

That hasn’t allayed the persistent whispers in the Belgian press that Evenepoel might yet line up at Milan-San Remo and perhaps even the Tour of Flanders this year, with Het Laatste Nieuws reporting that he is pencilled in as Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe’s first reserve for the first two Monuments of the season.

Speaking to Sporza, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe directeur sportif Klaas Lodewyck was adamant that Evenepoel would stick to the programme outlined at the team’s media day in Mallorca in December. 

After lining up at the UAE Tour next week, Evenepoel is scheduled to spend a long stint at altitude before racing the Volta a Catalunya in late March. His confirmed Classics programme is limited to the Ardennes.

“It’s always easy to say we’ll do this or that,” Lodewyck told Sporza. “First and foremost, we have to be satisfied with where we are now. The UAE Tour and Catalunya will be more than tough enough. This isn’t the time to add too many extras.”

Evenepoel has already made some tweaks to the programme announced in December, of course, namely adding the Trofeo Serra Tramuntana and the Trofeo Andratx to his slate of racing at the Challenge Mallorca.

He won those two races, having already led Red Bull to victory in the Trofeo Ses Salines team time trial, and he would enjoyed further success at the Volta Comunitat Valenciana, claiming two stage wins and the overall title on familiar training roads.

“Remco is someone who loves to race. It’s not up to us to hold him back at this point,” said Lodewyck, who gently dismissed concerns that Evenepoel was hitting form too early in the year.

“There are so many things these days that coaches can look at. If he hadn’t raced here, he would have been training hard. It’s good that we’ve started here. We can build on this. It boosts morale and confirms that he’s had a good winter.

“There’s still room for improvement, because he hasn’t done any real altitude training yet. But he’s where he needs to be without going over the limit.”

The centrepiece of Evenepoel’s first season at Red Bull will be the Tour de France, where he will look to better his third-place finish from his debut in 2024. With that in mind, Sporza noted that he is the first Belgian winner of the Volta Valenciana since Eddy Merckx in 1969, the year the Cannibal claimed his first Tour victory.