Remco Evenepoel is setting his sights on narrowing the performance gap with Tadej Pogačar, particularly on the steep climbs where the Slovenian has proven almost untouchable. At his new team, Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe, management is already convinced the Belgian has the potential to reach Pogačar’s level in certain areas. “Our collaboration with Remco will officially start in a few weeks, but behind the scenes we are already working on this,” Sven Vanthourenhout, directeur sportif of the German team, told Het Laatste Nieuws.
Like everyone in cycling knows, Vanthourenhout is very aware that Pogačar currently stands out on long climbs. (To say the least.) He pointed to the recent European championships, where the Slovenian’s attack left Evenepoel struggling to stay on the wheel. “Pogačar can maintain such an acceleration longer than anyone else. For a few minutes, he pushes twenty, thirty or forty watts more than the rest, then it falls back to a ‘normal’ wattage,” he said.
Evenepoel has already admitted he wants to improve in this area. “It’s up to my new coach to solve that,” the Belgian said.
Vanthourenhout believes Evenepoel’s base fitness is already on par with Pogačar’s, but there is room to boost his ability for very intensive efforts. “It’s no secret that you can work on these things with specific interval training,” he said.
The team director remains optimistic that Evenepoel can make a significant leap. “Remco is not going to improve fifteen percent, but I really believe that he can become the equal of Pogačar in the one-day work – so I’m not talking about stage races,” Vanthourenhout said.
Despite finishing second to Pogačar at both the European and world road championships, he is one of the few riders in the pro peloton who seems able to challenge him. In fact, at the world TT championships he took his third win in dominant fashion. At the Euros, he finished just 30 seconds behind. Although to be fair, it was clear in the final kilometres that Pogačar seemed to be easing up. After his initial launch, the Team UAE Emirates rider maintained over a minute gap for almost his entire solo breakaway.
Summer form is built in the winter, so it’s clear Evenepoel is already getting ready to get to work.