Remco Evenepoel has embarked on what he calls a two-week \u201cchampionship block,\u201d flying to Rwanda on Thursday to begin his world title defence in Sunday\u2019s time trial at the UCI Road World Championships.<\/p>\n
Speaking in an interview with Sporza<\/a> before boarding his eight-hour flight from Zaventem alongside national coach Serge Pauwels and teammates Florian Vermeersch and Ilan Van Wilder, the Belgian said he is embracing the challenge ahead.<\/p>\n \u201cWe knew the travel plan well in advance, so we could adapt to it,\u201d Evenepoel explained. \u201cWe can use today as a recovery day and then get in two good training days. Then it should be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n Prepping in the heat for African world title bid<\/p>\n Following the Tour of Britain, the reigning world time trial champion spent 10 days training in Calpe to prepare for the heat in Rwanda. \u201cI\u2019ve been able to do everything perfectly that was needed,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was a relaxed ten days. I trained well and came away with a good feeling. I\u2019m ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n How to Watch the 2025 UCI Road Worlds in Canada<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Evenepoel sees the worlds in Africa as a unique opportunity. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be an interesting experience,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m very curious what it will be like with the crowds and the course. I\u2019m quite open-minded, so I\u2019m not stressed about it. I like discovering new places, so that\u2019s a nice bonus.\u201d<\/p>\n On Poga\u010dar<\/p>\n While Filippo Ganna is skipping the time trial, Tadej Poga\u010dar<\/a> will line up as one of the main threats to Evenepoel\u2019s rainbow jersey. \u201cAnd if Poga\u010dar sets his mind on something, that\u2019s a sign he\u2019s ready for it,\u201d Evenepoel said. \u201cI look forward to the battle. Hopefully it won\u2019t be a close battle, but he\u2019s a nice extra challenger.\u201d<\/p>\n The Belgian is also slated to race both the road race and time trial at the European Championships immediately after the Worlds. \u201cIt might happen that I have an off day, but I\u2019ve prepared well enough to be ready for two weeks of competition,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ll just try to show the best of myself in every race \u2014 and hopefully come home with as many jerseys as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n The course is quite hilly, and in the past, Pogi has had the upper hand on lumpy TTs. Still, the Belgian has dominated in chronos the past few years, and always peaked at the right time. It will certainly be a helluva battle between the Tour de France champion and double Olympic gold medallist. You can catch all the action on FloBikes.com<\/a> from all the races in Rwanda, along with reports and photos on Canadian Cycling Magazine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Remco Evenepoel has embarked on what he calls a two-week \u201cchampionship block,\u201d flying to Rwanda on Thursday to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[52521,49,48,635,5901,82,1422],"class_list":["post-154736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-2025-uci-road-worlds","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-remco-evenepoel","tag-sports","tag-tadej-pogacar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}