Shortly before, he had secured the European individual time trial title - four days after the death of his compatriot Bjorg Lambrecht.
Evenepoel dedicated the victory to Lambrecht, who died on Monday in a crash during the Tour of Poland at the age of 22 - and to Stef Loos (19), who also died in an accident during a race in March. "I already said before the start that I would be racing for some stars in the sky today. This is not my victory. This is a victory for Bjorg and Stef," said Evenepoel.
It was the end of an eventful week for the young Belgian. On Saturday, the professional of the Belgian Deceuninck-QuickStep team won the prestigious and highly demanding Spanish one-day race Clásica San Sebastián. "I had tears in my eyes in the last three or four kilometres. It was very emotional. Because I had realised that this would be a really big step in my career," Evenepoel later admitted.
Last year's winner in San Sebastian was none other than his French team-mate Julian Alaphilippe (27), who had been wearing the yellow jersey for more than two weeks at the Tour de France shortly beforehand and had enchanted French cycling fans.
Evenepoel has been doing the same in his home country ever since his coup in Spain. The wonder boy from Schepdaal in the province of Flemish Brabant also became the youngest rider in history to win this year's Tour of Belgium.
So it's no wonder that the press in cycling-mad Belgium is not sparing with superlatives when it comes to the 2018 junior time trial and road world champion from Innsbruck. Evenepoel has already been reverently dubbed "Little Cannibal" in reference to Belgium's cycling idol and five-time Tour winner Eddy Merckx. "Will Evenepoel be my successor? He could be better than me. Remco has all the qualities to do it," said Merckx after Evenepoel's victory in the Basque Country on the news programme "VTM NIEUWS".
But cycling is not the only talent that Evenepoel seems to have been born with. He played nine junior international football matches (U16 and U15). He played for PSV Eindhoven, RSC Anderlecht and KV Mechelen as a left-back - before dedicating himself entirely to cycling in 2017. Obviously the right choice.
