{"id":177858,"date":"2025-09-29T14:28:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T14:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/177858\/"},"modified":"2025-09-29T14:28:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T14:28:09","slug":"remco-evenepoel-after-chaotic-worlds-ride-i-felt-like-i-was-super-strong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/177858\/","title":{"rendered":"Remco Evenepoel after chaotic worlds ride: ‘I felt like I was super strong’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Remco Evenepoel\u2019s day at the 2025 UCI road world championships<\/a> was anything but smooth, Despite salvaging a silver medal, the Belgian admitted he was left with mixed feelings. The winner of the time trial earlier this week was left wondering what might have been. It was clear by his shaking of the head as he crossed the line he was hardly satisfied with second.<\/p>\n

Problems early on<\/p>\n

The 25-year-old was forced to switch bikes twice and lost his key lieutenant, Ilan Van Wilder, to a crash early in the 267.5-km race. On top of that, he struggled with saddle issues that left him riding in pain.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like I was super strong, but having to chase twice was just too much,\u201d Evenepoel told Sporza<\/a>. \u201cAt the worst possible moment, my seat collapsed after I hit a hole. My hamstrings locked up and I couldn\u2019t push the power I needed. It changed the race completely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evenepoel eventually found himself back in contention. But the energy he expended took its toll. \u201cI switched bikes again. But the saddle position wasn\u2019t right and I had a lot of back pain. That was frustrating,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Belgian also pointed to Van Wilder\u2019s absence as a decisive factor. \u201cWith Ilan, we could have brought the gap down and maybe had a different race. That crash really hurt our chances,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Evenepoel, who came to Kigali, Rwanda eyeing a double after winning the time trial earlier in the week, was left trailing solo winner Tadej Poga\u010dar by more than a minute. Ireland\u2019s Ben Healy rounded out the podium.<\/p>\n

Despite the disappointment, the double Olympic champion said he\u2019ll quickly turn the page. \u201cWe still raced well as a team, and I gave everything. Now the focus is on the European championships.\u201d<\/p>\n

And in case you somehow missed it, Sherbrooke, Que.\u2019s Magdeleine Valli\u00e8res made history, becoming the first elite Canadian to ever win the road race.<\/p>\n

Magdeleine Valli\u00e8res just broke a record held by Tadej Poga\u010dar<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

It was an incredible week of racing, tbh. Amazing races, great crowds and road. Chapeau, UCI. (Don\u2019t hear that often.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Remco Evenepoel\u2019s day at the 2025 UCI road world championships was anything but smooth, Despite salvaging a silver…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177859,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[52521,49,48,635,46541,5901,82,1422],"class_list":["post-177858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-2025-uci-road-worlds","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-magdeleine-vallieres","tag-remco-evenepoel","tag-sports","tag-tadej-pogacar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177858","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=177858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}