No April Fool's joke: Red Bull pro Evenepoel makes his debut at the Tour of Flanders

It's not an April Fool's joke, but it's certainly an Easter surprise for many cycling fans. Remco Evenepoel is making his debut at the Tour of Flanders, the most important cycling race in his home country of Belgium. This was announced by his team Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe in a press release on 1 April - just four days before the start of the race. The 26-year-old Belgian had already publicised his start this coming Sunday (5 April) via his social media accounts.

A project planned for the long term

According to his employer's press release, however, it was not a last-minute decision to tackle the tough spring classic for the first time. The start in the spring classic is said to have been planned for a long time. "The connection between Remco and the Tour of Flanders is deep and emotional. A plan like this doesn't come about at short notice. We deliberately kept the topic under the radar in order to make the moment a surprise for the fans - on 1 April of all days. The fact that we were able to keep this in-house for over 100 days speaks volumes for the team spirit in this team," said Team Principal Ralph Denk according to the press release. The team's provisional squad for the Tour of Flanders also includes Mick and Tim van Dijke, Gianni Vermeersch, Laurence Pithie as well as Jan Tratnik and Jarrad Drizners. Evenepoel last appeared at the Tour of Catalonia as an assistant to the German Tour de France bronze medallist Florian Lipowitz.