{"id":483769,"date":"2026-02-18T20:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T20:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/483769\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T20:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T20:46:08","slug":"so-what-the-heck-happened-to-remco-evenepoel-at-the-uae-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/483769\/","title":{"rendered":"So what the heck happened to Remco Evenepoel at the UAE Tour?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It unraveled very, very quickly for Remco Evenepoel at the UAE Tour.<\/p>\n

The Red Bull\u2013BORA-hansgrohe rider cracked on the steep gradients of Jebel Mobrah, losing over two minutes to stage winner Antonio Tiberi and tumbling from the race lead to 11th overall.<\/p>\n

Evenepoel said the warning signs were there early. \u201cAt the foot of the climb, I already had emerging cramps,\u201d he said to Het Nieuwsblad<\/a>\u2014 something he admitted is rare for him. The effort from the previous day may have lingered. \u201cMaybe yesterday\u2019s effort wasn\u2019t really completely digested.\u201d<\/p>\n

One day you\u2019re good\u2026<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, he smashed the TT, taking a win at top speed<\/a>. It was yet another victory for him in what has been a remarkable start to the season\u2013seven wins. It appeared like he was en route to solidifying his lead at the UAE Tour, until it wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

When the pace intensified, he couldn\u2019t respond. \u201cWhen I had to let go I had a very bad kilometre,\u201d he said, though he added that he eventually stabilized.<\/p>\n

Heat wasn\u2019t the excuse. \u201cI really kept drinking,\u201d Evenepoel said. Still, he acknowledged a restless night. \u201cI didn\u2019t have the best night either, I woke up from the heat. But in the end, I can\u2019t look for excuses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now sitting 1:44 down, the overall may be out of reach. But a stage win? \u201cI might be able to do something nice on Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a good day, however, for national champion Derek Gee-West of Lidl-Trek. Wearing his brand-new maple leaf kit, he rode to seventh on the day and moved up overall.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first three days racing with the team have been great,\u201d Gee-West said after. \u201cI am quickly getting used to the team and we have had a nice mix of a very stressful sprint day, a time trial, and then today covering all the bases pretty quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Antonio Tiberi took the dub along with the overall lead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It unraveled very, very quickly for Remco Evenepoel at the UAE Tour. The Red Bull\u2013BORA-hansgrohe rider cracked on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,162059,5901,82,141377],"class_list":{"0":"post-483769","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-derek-gee-west","12":"tag-remco-evenepoel","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-uae-tour"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483769","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=483769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}