{"id":617446,"date":"2026-04-19T16:38:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T16:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/617446\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T16:38:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T16:38:09","slug":"evenepoel-beams-after-winning-one-of-his-favorite-races-and-praises-dutch-teammates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/617446\/","title":{"rendered":"Evenepoel beams after winning one of his favorite races and praises Dutch teammates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Remco Evenepoel<\/a> has won the Amstel Gold Race<\/a> for the first time in his career. After finishing third last year, he was the strongest rider on Sunday, convincingly beating defending champion Mattias Skjelmose<\/a> in the sprint<\/a>. <\/p>\n

After the finish, the Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe rider described the Amstel as one of his favorite races on the calendar.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis victory means a lot to me,\u201d Evenepoel said at the start of his flash interview with NOS. \u201cI already had a good month in Catalonia and at the Tour of Flanders, but winning is always nicer,\u201d he added, now able to look back on a successful spring campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve said before that I love this race, with all those short and nasty climbs,\u201d he continued. Evenepoel saw the race unfold in a similar way to last year\u2019s edition. \u201cThe finale opened up in the same place as last year, on the Kruisberg. I had a lot of confidence and also felt much better in the final than I did last year. That showed in my sprint as well. It was much better than last year; I really still had something left in the legs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Continue reading below the photo. <\/p>\n

\"oumi-remco-evenepoel\"\/Evenepoel: \u201cI noticed Skjelmose was on the limit\u201d<\/p>\n

Evenepoel could count on a strong team along the way, with his teammates taking on much of the work throughout the race. \u201cI\u2019m very proud that I was able to reward the hard work of my teammates. Danny van Poppel and Tim van Dijke had to control the race all day. The other teammates then kept putting me in perfect position.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the final, Evenepoel gradually thinned out the group of favorites. Some of his rivals also disappeared in a more literal sense, with Matteo Jorgenson among those taken out by a crash. Evenepoel avoided the bad luck, and in the closing phase he then beat Skjelmose with clear authority in the sprint. \u201cThis is one of my favorite races on the calendar, and to win it on my second appearance is amazing,\u201d the Belgian said, beaming after the finish.<\/p>\n

Just like last year, Evenepoel had to take on Skjelmose in the sprint. \u201cYes,\u201d Evenepoel laughed. \u201cI had flashbacks to last year. But I felt much more confident. On the climbs, I noticed that I was the strongest rider in the race. When he came through to take turns, I also noticed that Skjelmose was on the limit. That gave me a lot of confidence that I would be able to finish it off in the sprint.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAmstel sits just below the Monuments\u201d<\/p>\n

Evenepoel has already won plenty of beautiful races, and among all those victories, he places the Amstel Gold Race high on the list. \u201cIt is definitely the most beautiful victory of the year. Every win is beautiful, of course. Amstel sits just below the Monuments, so it is certainly high in my ranking. It is definitely in the top eight of my victories. I am one of the lucky ones who wins a lot, and I am proud of that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Remco Evenepoel has won the Amstel Gold Race for the first time in his career. After finishing third…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[212379,64,63,784,191479,39733,8396,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-617446","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-amstel-gold-race","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-cycling","12":"tag-mattias-skjelmose","13":"tag-red-bull-bora-hansgrohe","14":"tag-remco-evenepoel","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617446","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=617446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}