Remco Evenepoel Faces Uncertainty in Tour de France Debut: Michel Wuyts Issues Warning

Remco Evenepoel will start his quest in The Tour de France next week. However, it is a lot of guesswork for cycling enthusiasts as to how he will perform there. Michel Wuyts has already issued a strong warning.

Doubts

He also wonders in his column for Het Laatste Nieuws what will happen to the climber Evenepoel. Because in the Dauphiné he received some serious blows. “Not dramatically far, not even cramped, but quite a distance behind Roglic. And Ciccone. And Vlasov. And Gee. And Jorgenson. And yes, he also conceded a few corners on De Plus three stages in a row,” Wuyts also noted.

The reason why it was not going well uphill was also indicated by his team: “Two kilos too much. They would fly off during altitude training. That’s what it sounded like from the mouth of master justifyer Lodewyck.” Wuyts sincerely hopes that this will indeed make a significant difference when the Tour starts next week. He would rather see proof delivered a little earlier.

“I hope that Remco’s sharpness will shine off the screen at the road championships,” he looks forward to next Sunday. “The Tour starts with three brutal stages. Middle mountains and high mountains. UAE, BORA-hansgrohe and — yes — Visma-Lease a Bike with Vingegaard and Van Aert will be storming. Struggle of the fittest. Every ounce too much can have fatal consequences.”

Realistic goals

Wuyts knows that Evenepoel will need his strongest climbing legs to be able to look towards the podium. “To aim high, Evenepoel needs the superiority of the 2022 Vuelta,” he summarizes. “ Then he climbed like a chamois for the first day of rest. We hardly saw that Evenepoel again on high mountains.”

“Conclusion: as a climber, Evenepoel consistently ended up in the high sub-top after winning the Vuelta. Against Pogacar and the best Vingegaard, he will remain ‘damage limiter’ in the Tour, even in his best climbing form. With “I’m aiming for the top five” he estimates himself correctly. By the way, something better can always grow from that self-knowledge.”