Remco Evenepoel, in times and clashes – Libération

The 24-year-old Belgian, a superstar of the peloton who has already experienced a lot in the saddle, is flying for the debut of his first Grande Boucle. A third of the way through the race, the wearer of the best young rider jersey seems one of the toughest opponents of the yellow jersey Tadej Pogacar.

Remco Evenepoel, second in the Tour general classification, was just a tiny bit of a rider when he entered his first stage race in France. That was seven years ago, in April 2017. He had been riding his bike competitively for a few weeks at most. On the second day of the race, the kid from Schepdael, a Flemish suburb of Brussels, was caught in a mass fall. “I couldn’t do anything. I was literally thrown off my bike and my face hit something on the side of the road.” Evenepoel was taken to hospital, his nose streaming with blood, an open wound covering his face. It was the young Belgian’s first taste of racing abroad.

Since then, Evenepoel, still young since he weighs only 24, has suffered other falls, the last one at the Tour of the Basque Country in April on a descent at 80 km/h, which left him with a fractured shoulder blade and collarbone. Three weeks of inactivity followed but the leader of the Soudal Quick-Step team managed to start his first Tour de France. Since Saturday, he has been sporting a happy smile and, since the second stage, the white jersey of best young rider. Placed 45 seconds behind Tadej Pogacar in the general classification, he is establishing himself as a serious rival to the Slovenian yellow jersey scheduled to raise his arms in Nice in two weeks.

This Friday, July 5, he is even the favorite for the seventh stage, a 25.3 km time trial in the hills between Nuit-Saint-Georges and Gevrey-Chambertin (Côte-d’Or), which is a sure bet for him. He will set off at the end of the afternoon, shortly before Pogacar. This is the return of this type of exercise to the Tour de France since Combloux last year, when the Dane Jonas Vingegaard demolished Pogacar with such violence that the performance covered the end of the Tour with a nasty fog. Evenepoel, world champion in 2023, is a specialist in the discipline where the rider, sitting on his seat but curled up on his machine, his mouth glued to the handlebars, is an aerodynamic ball launched at full speed.

The heavy legacy of Eddy Merckx

When he was young, he liked the aerial Alberto Contador, a slender climber. Today, he sees himself more in Miguel Indurain, five-time yellow jersey winner in the early 90s. “I’m not the best climber in the peloton but I’m one of the best rouleurs in the world,” he admits. “So if I want to win a Tour de France, we’d have to do courses like in his day, with 70km time trials. I’d like that.”

Until the age of 17, he wore another type of jersey, that of the football clubs Anderlecht, PSV Eindhoven and even the Belgian youth selection, before devoting himself to cycling. It only took him two years of practice to sign with the professionals. Like others before him, he brought back the ghosts of the past, Eddy Merckx first and foremost, but more clearly. The Cannibal, not always tender afterwards, speculated in 2018: “Maybe he will be better than me.” There are less heavy legacies to bear. At home, crazy about cycling, Evenepoel became a hero before even wearing a cape. Hope was not disappointed since he won the Vuelta in 2022, the first Belgian to win a grand tour in forty-four years. The same year, he adorned himself with iridescence during the road world championships and won the first of his two Liège-Bastogne-Liège races. The successes, long, daring solo raids, piled up. Already a legend.

Now all that remains is the Tour. An idea that is still vague. It is not said at the level of the strongest climbers, and not unshakeable on the descent. The image of the Tour of Lombardy, in 2020, has remained anchored in his mind, a misfortune that left him with a “feeling” that is still unknown: “That of living, quite simply.” Evenepoel impales himself on a parapet and plunges into a ravine. “I felt like I was in a black hole, with the shadow… he says afterwards. I called for help. But my voice didn’t carry enough. No one heard me: for five minutes, I felt abandoned…” And: “I never thought about death, even when I was lying in the ravine. I quickly tried to imagine the moment when I would get back on the bike. My luck is that I am still very young, I think that a 30-year-old rider should have ended his career there. “I’m still brand new.” Four years later, the Belgian still seems fresh and almost intact.