The Remco Evenepoel renaissance is exactly what cycling needs

Independent

26-04-2025

Oh to be a fly on the wall in the peloton when Tadej Pogacar launched his long-range attack at Amstel Gold last Sunday. With more than 40km left to race the rainbow jersey took flight, quickly established a gap, and didn't look back. The TV viewing figures might tell a similar story, with those bored of the world champion's dominance switching off when he disappeared up the road. The equivalent of leaving a football match with your team 3-0 down at half-time.
Except Pogacar winning wasn't a foregone conclusion. Those leaving at half-time, and those accepting their fate in the peloton, reckoned without one man: Remco Evenepoel. The Belgian has been absent since December, when he sustained a litany of fractures and injuries in a nasty crash, doored by a postal van while out training. He still has nerve damage in his shoulder from the accident.
But he has worked his way back to fitness and marked his return with an immediate win at Brabantse Pijl on Friday, outsprinting a bona fide sprinter in countryman Wout van Aert on home roads. The joy on his face at the finish was indicative of the months of gruelling work that went into his recovery – and now it feels like he never left.
Pogacar wasn't in action then, meaning it took until Evenepoel's second race day of 2025 for the pair to line up together, at Amstel Gold. Two of the most conspicuous figures in the peloton, Evenepoel with his aero bike position and unmistakable, shiny gold bike and gold helmet, marking out the double Olympic champion; Pogacar in the white skinsuit and rainbow stripes, like a poisonous frog, offering a warning sign to all around him.
That warning was heeded by everyone except Evenepoel as the world champion took off. Almost invariably Pogacar's long-range attacks flip a switch in the peloton as even the world's best riders start jostling for position and fighting for second place, even if they don't admit that bit out loud. It changes the entire dynamic of a race.
But it's not as if Pogacar is invincible: at last September's World Championships his 51km solo move clearly took its toll on the UAE Team Emirates-XRG man. A slimmed-down chasing bunch got within a handful of seconds of him in the final kilometres before descending into infighting once again, allowing the Slovenian to take a comfortable win.
It looked as if a similar outcome was on the cards at Amstel Gold, except this time Evenepoel was on form and unwilling to let the race slip up the road. It was Mattias Skjelmose, a young talent and the eventual winner, who made the first move to chase Pogacar, but it was Evenepoel who brought the engine and the drive to the pursuit. The pair bridged across with 8km to go; the unthinkable had happened. Pogacar had been caught.
Evenepoel's return changes the dynamic in the peloton once again. Pogacar, unused to being caught, now has an equal, or something close to it at least, competing for the same prizes at the remaining Classics. While the first three Monuments of the season and the cobbled Classics served up a duel between Pogacar and Mathieu van der Poel, the story of the Ardennes Classics, and the season's fourth Monument, Sunday's Liege-Bastogne-Liege, is of the mano a mano battle between Pogacar and Evenepoel.
And as Van der Poel proved at Milan-San Remo and Paris-Roubaix, there are ways to beat Pogacar. Evenepoel has already demonstrated one of them: his long-range attacks are not guaranteed to succeed.
The aura of invincibility has been shattered. That can only be a good thing for cycling.
Fleche-Wallonne on Wednesday provided another battlefield for the pair, and indicated that Pogacar had had a tactical rethink. The two were never far apart, shadowing each other's every move, and rather than going long, Pogacar waited until the near-vertical slopes of the aptly named Mur de Huy, the 'wall' climb that caps off 205km of racing, to simply motor away from the rest of the bunch as it fell apart. Evenepoel didn't have the legs to counter; ultimately it was talented French climber Kevin Vauquelin who came closest, with Tom Pidcock rallying for third.
The site of Pogacar's attack was maybe a little unconventional, slightly further down the ascent than where riders normally launch, but it meant he had enough of a gap before the gradients levelled off and the weaker climbers could chase. It was a finish made for Pogacar – but he may have considered attacking from range, had he not been burned by such a move last Sunday.
So what next? Liege-Bastogne-Liege provides the final instalment in the trilogy of Classic clashes between these two titans. They have two wins apiece, Evenepoel's double coming in between Pogacar's victories in 2021 and 2024. Pogacar has the edge on the steepest climbs, while Evenepoel can make up time on the flatter sections.
Psychologically, the playing field is level: Evenepoel has the advantage of knowing he has brought his rival back from the brink of victory before, while Pogacar had the better of him on the Mur de Huy in their most recent clash.
Both have an unshakeable confidence. Evenepoel was bullish after Amstel Gold, saying that he would have won if he hadn't had extra mileage in his legs from chasing back onto the bunch after an early crash. His combustible nature makes him the perfect foil to Pogacar.
That confidence has been missing from the peloton: a willingness to take the fight to Pogacar, to refuse to settle for second place. Evenepoel's return is the spark men's cycling needed. And there are plenty of others who can take advantage, too, as Skjelmose did at Amstel Gold: Pidcock, Ben Healy, Vauquelin.
The stage is set: let battle commence.