{"id":468497,"date":"2026-02-09T12:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T12:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/468497\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T12:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T12:52:09","slug":"evenepoel-is-flying-will-he-do-his-first-flanders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/468497\/","title":{"rendered":"Evenepoel is flying: Will he do his first Flanders?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Might we see the double Olympic champ, Remco Evenepoel make his Ronde van Vlaanderen debut this year? Although the Monument on is not part of his current race programme, the Red Bull\u2013BORA\u2013hansgrohe leader has been listed as first reserve for the team\u2019s selection, according to Het Laatste Nieuws<\/a> and Wielerflits<\/a>. That status also applies to Milan\u2013Sanremo, though sources suggest the Italian classic is now unlikely.<\/p>\n

Evenepoel has said that there is no need to rush changes to a carefully planned season, with his focus firmly on upcoming stage races. After the UAE Tour, he is scheduled for an altitude camp on Mount Teide alongside Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d and Florian Lipowitz, before targeting the Volta a Catalunya as his first major objective.With Flanders taking place a week after Catalunya, a late decision remains possible.But after the UAE Tour, his upcoming schedule should be made a bit more official. Given the length of the training camp though, Milano\u2013Sanremo is effectively ruled out<\/p>\n

Flying start to 2026<\/p>\n

Evenepoel has begun the season in absolutely magnificent fashion. It\u2019s barely February and the Belgian has five wins, including the overall at the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana. In Spain, he wrecked the competition in the TT<\/a>, and took a glorious solo win on Stage 4. Plus, he took three one-day races in a row at the end of January in Spain. Not a bad start.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never got into trouble at the Volta,\u201d Evenepoel said<\/a>. \u201cWe were always in control. This is a great start. I\u2019m going to try to hold on to this feeling. I can attack hard and then pull through. The hard work of this winter is already paying off. There is certainly still room for improvement. If I have a smooth winter, I\u2019m always in shape pretty quickly. But certainly not in top form yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evenepoel has big ambitions for this year\u2013including trying to narrow the gap between the seemingly unbeatable Tadej Poga\u010dar.<\/p>\n

Sven Vanthourenhout, directeur sportif of his team, in an interview with Het Laatste Nieuws<\/a>, said they, like everyone else well aware of Poga\u010dar\u2019s dominance on long climbs, but want to try and help Evenepoel stay competitive.<\/p>\n

\u201cPoga\u010dar can sustain an acceleration longer than anyone else. For several minutes, he can push twenty, thirty, even forty watts above the rest, then it settles back to a more \u2018normal\u2019 level,\u201d he said. The DS says Evenepoel\u2019s baseline fitness is already very close to the road world champ\u2019s but there\u2019s room to enhance his capacity for very intense efforts. \u201cIt\u2019s no secret that targeted interval training can address this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Given his performances to start the year, are we set for a proper ball game at the 2026 Tour de France between Pogi and Evenepoel?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Might we see the double Olympic champ, Remco Evenepoel make his Ronde van Vlaanderen debut this year? Although…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[239405,64,63,784,39733,8396,85,6494],"class_list":["post-468497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-2026-ronde-van-vlaanderen","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-red-bull-bora-hansgrohe","tag-remco-evenepoel","tag-sports","tag-tadej-pogacar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}