'Really, really bad' - Evenepoel caught by Vingegaard in time trial ordeal

Remco Evenepoel didn’t sugarcoat things when the microphone was put in front of him in the mixed zone after stage 13 of the Tour de France. The mountain time trial to Peyragudes began brightly but quickly turned into an ordeal for the Soudal-QuickStep rider, who suffered the indignity of being caught and passed for two minutes by Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike) in the finishing straight.

Evenepoel’s leaden pedalling had slowed almost to a standstill by then, and that doleful visual impression was reflected by the results sheet. He 12th on the stage, some 2:38 down on the day’s winner Tadej Pogačar, and his average speed of 25.481kph was just shy of 3kph slower than the Slovenian’s.

“My analysis? You know it as well as I do: it was bad, just really bad,” Evenepoel told Sporza.

And yet the early signs had been encouraging. Evenepoel was just four seconds slower than Pogačar at the first time check after 4km. It briefly looked as though the Belgian had recovered from his travails on the road to Hautacam on stage 12, where his struggles on the Col du Soulor had been partially offset by smart management of his resources on the final climb.

There was nowhere to hide an off-day on the steep slopes of Peyragudes, however, and Evenepoel was in visible difficulty almost as soon as the road began to climb. At the second time check, he was down to fifth, 1:29 behind Pogačar, and his pace slowed further on the upper reaches of the climb.

“The start was good, but after five minutes of climbing, the good feeling was gone. After that, it was just a matter of surviving to the finish. Look, it was really, really bad,” said Evenepoel who was also briefly bothered by a chain issue inside the final 3km. 

“That didn’t make the difference. The feeling was just bad. And that’s the only reason for this time trial.”

Evenepoel placed third overall in an impressive Tour debut a year ago and his ambition for 2025 was to see if he could get a little closer to Pogačar and Vingegaard. Two weeks in, the Big Two are already out of sight, and Evenepoel insteads finds himself looking overall his shoulder at the men closing in behind him.

Although Evenepoel is still third overall, he is now 7:24 down on Pogačar and 3:17 behind Vingegaard. The third step of the podium is now the summit of Evenepoel’s ambition, and Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) is only six seconds behind him, and Oscar Onley (Picnic-PostNL) is less than a minute down. Both riders are also in contention for Evenepoel’s white jersey.

“No, I can’t really count on third place or the white jersey either. I don’t really care about that right now,” said Evenepoel, who will hope for better on Saturday’s mammoth stage to Superbagnères. The stage takes in the Col du Tourmalet, which will bring back unhappy memories of a jour sans on the 2023 Vuelta a España for Evenepoel.

“Hopefully I can recover tomorrow,” he said. “It’s a new day, which could be positive or negative. I don’t really know what to say. I don’t know what’s going on. The Dauphiné was the same story. I’m disappointed that I'm standing here with so few words, but the feeling was just bad.”