Remco Evenepoel had just slipped under the tent that had been erected at the stage finish of the Tour of Spain to protect the riders wearing the leader's jerseys and the day's winner from the scorching Extremadura sun.
The 22-year-old Belgian had three reasons for his stay there: he had defended the overall leader's red jersey on the 18th stage and was therefore also ahead in the classification for the best young rider - and he had caught up with the breakaway rider Robert Gesink with a magnificent effort on the last kilometre and won the stage on the Alto del Piornal. In the sprint, Evenepoel defeated his closest rival in the battle for overall victory, Enric Mas - as if he wanted to make the hierarchy of the 77th edition of the Vuelta even more visible to everyone.
Defying the wind at the Vuelta
While the defeated Spaniard kindly apologised to Gesink for the fact that the two best riders in this Vuelta had robbed him of what he thought was a certain stage win in the last 100 metres, Evenepoel had already dived into the swarm of microphones. With eyes beaming with happiness, he announced: "It's great that I've now won a mountain stage of this Vuelta. The climb wasn't that steep, but the wind made it tough. I had to pedal at some of the highest wattages in this Vuelta. I think I proved to be a good climber today and also a good tour rider."
Will to win
The self-confident professional cyclist had virtually spoken his own tribute as the overall winner of the Tour of Spain 2022. But as an observer, you could agree with that without reservation. Evenepoel showed on this fourth-to-last stage that his body can withstand the strain of a three-week tour right to the end - and disproved the critics who still wanted to deny the precocious cycling talent's stamina in a Grand Tour. His determined finish against Mas was proof of both his explosiveness and his will to win after several weeks of continuous exertion.
Click through: All Vuelta winners since 2010
The fact that Evenepoel wanted this victory - it was his second after his furious performance in the individual time trial on stage 10 - is a sign that he doesn't just want to win races, he wants to dominate them. He also wants to score points aesthetically: "I hope I looked good in the finish photos," he joked under the tent roof. A winner in the exhausting world of professional cycling who also values his looks - an ideal casting for the sports entertainment industry.
Remco Evenepoel raised great expectations in his native Belgium at a young age. As a 17- and 18-year-old, he won 21 times in 33 race days - even in the World Championship race in the junior class, he rode away from the international competition early on as a soloist. This earned him the nickname "Cannibal from Schepdaal". Cannibal because of his hunger for victory, reminiscent of Eddy Merckx, the original cannibal and probably the most prominent athlete from his home country; Schepdaal because Evenepoel comes from this town in Flanders - located halfway between Brussels and Aalst.
Van Wilder remembers Evenepoel
"He was practically unbeatable in those years. I must have finished second behind him ten or eleven times back then," says his current team-mate Ilan Van Wilder. Like Evenepoel, the Belgian was born in 2000 and has known him since 2017. "Back then, I saw him for the first time at a funfair race. He won that too. What struck me most about him were his enormous thighs. He came from football," recalls Van Wilder.
The son of professional cyclist Patrick Evenepoel had made it as a footballer to captain of the Belgian junior national team - before he decided to pursue self-realisation on two wheels. The late starter soon showed the trained cyclists what he was made of. At the age of 18, he signed his first professional contract with the traditional domestic World Tour team Quick-Step - which was considered a sensation at the time.
Pressure from Remco mania
Fans and cycling journalists were quickly enchanted by the young high-flyer. A veritable Remco mania began - especially in his cycling-mad homeland. In Belgium - the number one cycling nation according to the current world rankings - the youngster was seen as a saviour figure who would free the country from a trauma: since 1978, when Johan De Muynck won the Giro d'Italia no Belgian had ever won one of the three major national tours before.
However, the young star only partially lived up to the great expectations. Well, he won the difficult Clasica San Sebastian at the age of 19 with an impressive solo ride, became European champion and runner-up in the individual time trial. But the serious crash at the Tour of Lombardy 2020, when he fell off a bridge and suffered a pelvic fracture, abruptly interrupted his rapid development. Evenepoel did not race for eight months.
This was followed by an ambitious project in which he learnt the hard way: the Giro d'Italia 2021 was not only the first three-week tour of his career, but also the first race after his injury break. He kept up with the best for ten days - finishing just seconds behind the overall leader Egan Bernal.
Then came the ride over the gravel roads of Tuscany to Montalcino - and it became clear: after half the distance of the tour, he was already lacking physical resilience and bike control on difficult terrain and descents. On Monte Zoncolan, his dreams of making a breakthrough as a classics rider at the first attempt were finally dashed. Exhausted after the passage of the Dolomites and weakened by a crash, he gave up after the 17th stage.
Lessons learnt from mistakes
Evenepoel has learnt from these experiences. He no longer starves himself before long stage races as he did before his debut. "We're no longer aiming for the weight he had at the Giro," says his coach Koen Pilgrim. Instead of 60.5 kilograms as before the Tour of Italy, his weight in Spain was allegedly between 63 and 64 kilograms - where exactly is a trade secret in his racing team Quick-Step-Alpha Vinyl. The goals publicly formulated before the start were comparatively modest: a stage win and a good position in the final classification.
In view of this, it seemed almost overconfident how the young Belgian stormed into the overall leader's red jersey on stage 6. In the finale of the Vuelta, he drove the field of favourites apart with enormous speed. He did not accelerate abruptly, but rather delivered an uphill effort on the Pico Jano, which only Enric Mas was able to follow. The three-time Vuelta champion Primoz Roglic lost 1:22 minutes. At the summit, he was 15 seconds behind the day's winner Jay Vine. Evenepoel spoke of the "best race I have ever ridden".
Three days later, he clearly distanced his main rivals on the climb to Les Praeres, taking 52 seconds off Roglic and 44 seconds off Mas. Julian Alaphilippe played an important role in this showdown in the north of Spain. The world champion renounced his own ambitions and, in the service of Evenepoel, wore down his rivals and their helpers like a kind of rolling sledgehammer - the junior boss finished the job. This was followed by a superior victory in the individual time trial on stage 10, when he pulled out 48 seconds on Roglic, the Olympic champion in this discipline. But at the halfway point of the tour there were still uncertainties and risks.
He can take a beating
There were prompt setbacks - triggered by the coronavirus-related withdrawal of team-mate Pieter Serry, one of a total of 24 riders who ultimately left the race after testing positive. Two days later, on stage 11, Julian Alaphilippe crashed out of the race. On the 12th stage, it was the captain himself: Evenepoel slid off in a bend. In the days that followed, he suffered from the consequences of the crash. And Roglic turned up the heat. On the two mountain top finishes in the Sierra de La Pandera and the following day in the Sierra Nevada, the defending champion made up more than a minute in total.
But Evenepoel, not yet used to races with altitudes of over 2000 metres, showed his resilience. He coped with the setbacks both physically and mentally. His body recovered on the last rest day. "In my eyes, that's the biggest development Remco has made in recent years: He has become much calmer and doesn't panic even in stressful situations. That also makes the races easier for us," Van Wilder stated. His team boss Patrick Lefevere agrees: "Mentally, he has come back as a completely different racing driver." He even called his protégé "Remco Evenepoel 2.0" - the improved version of the rough diamond.
Change at Evenepoel
The athlete himself has also noticed his own change - away from pure selfishness and towards focussing on those whose strength he needs. "When I used to see three eclairs (French sweets; editor's note) in front of me, I thought they were all for me. Now I look to see who else might like them," says the young leader, who dutifully hands out compliments to his team members: "And my team, which doesn't have much experience of the tour so far, has also grown into the task. We performed well every day." And noble helper Van Wilder praised the motivational speech that Evenepoel gave in the team bus before the start of the 20th stage through the Sierra just outside Madrid - before he confidently completed the overall on the final mountain stage. After Roglic had catapulted himself out of the race with a crash a few days earlier, Evenepoel lacked a real challenger in the end.
A future Tour winner?
Nevertheless, this Vuelta was by no means a walk in the park for the highly talented rider. Evenepoel had to fight. He was challenged to be sovereign - especially as his team Quick-Step was not as strong as its rivals Movistar, Jumbo-Visma or UAE Emirates. Team boss Lefevere will be thinking about how he can make his young star's escort more powerful in the coming years. The way Evenepoel won puts him in pole position among the challengers to the last two Tour de France winners, Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard. There could be exciting years ahead for road cycling.
Vuelta 2022 - Results
Women's Vuelta - 7-11 September 2022
Mission accomplished: One of Annemiek van Vleuten's goals for this season was to win the women's races at Giro Donne (ten stages), Tour de France Femmes (eight) and Vuelta a Espana (five). And the soon-to-be 40-year-old Dutchwoman put her money where her mouth is. On the second stage of the Ceratizit Challenge by La Vuelta, as the women's race in Spain is officially called, she made two energetic attacks on the penultimate climb - and nobody could follow. On her subsequent solo ride to the finish in Colindres, she pulled more than two minutes clear of the chasing pack.
"It was the hardest stage. And we wanted to make it tough with the team right from the start," said the serial winner at the finish after laying the foundation for her overall victory. "There are neither the hard stages here nor the length that you would expect from a Grand Tour," she categorised her third victory and the triple. The 22-year-old Liane Lippert from Friedrichshafen was able to establish herself as one of the strongest chasers on all stages and on the longer mountains - next year, the currently best female cyclist in Germany will be riding with Annemiek van Vleuten at Team Movistar.
Women's Vuelta - Results
Ceratizit Challenge by La Vuelta
Stage winners
1ST (MZF) Trek-Segafredo
2. Annemiek van Vleuten (NED, Movistar)
3 Grace Brown (FROM, FDJ-SUEZ)
4. Silvia Persico (ITA, Valcar)
5 Elisa Balsamo (ITA, Trek-Segafredo)
Overall classification
1st Annemiek van Vleuten (NED, Movistar), 12:21:46 hours
2. Elisa Longo Borghini (ITA, Trek), +1:44 min.
3 Demi Vollering (NED, SD Worx), +2:11
4th Liane Lippert (GER, DSM), +2:34
5 Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (DEN, FDJ), +2:43
6 Ane Santesteban (DEN, BikeExchange), +3:03
7 Anna Shackley (GBR, SD Worx), +3:07
8th Elise Chabbey (SUI, Canyon), +3:29
9 Juliette Labous (FRA, DSM), +3:35
10 Katarzyna Niewiadoma (POL, Canyon), +3:38
... 58 Hannah Ludwig (GER, Trek), +26:41; ... 69 Aileen Schweikart (GER, Bizkaia), +34:06; ... 78 Linda Riedmann (GER, Jumbo), +37:12; ... 91. Lin Teutenberg (GER, Ceratizit), +44:21; ... 102nd Hannah Buch (GER, Roland), 1:07:58 hrs.
