Soudal – Quick-Step<\/a>
\njersey, but you don’t know whether you’ll still be wearing that jersey next
\nyear,\u201d Evenepoel told Cycling News. \u201cBut all’s well that ends well.\u201d<\/p>\nThe merger collapsed eventually, and so Evenepoel stayed. BORA
\npivoted to signing Roglic for 2024, while INEOS tried, and failed, to lure
\nEvenepoel as they slid down the WorldTour rankings. That winter, Evenepoel
\nannounced his intentions to make his Tour de France debut, meaning we would finally
\nsee him fighting Pogacar and Vingegaard. But after his Tourmalet disaster, many
\nfans suggested that he did not have the legs to go toe to toe with the top two.<\/p>\n
But 2024 changed everything.<\/p>\n
The foundations for this transfer were laid in January 2024.
\nWhile his team trained in Mallorca, Denk was in America, quietly selling a
\nmajority stake of the team to Red Bull. With the energy drink giant\u2019s backing,
\nthe team now had both the money and strategic vision to make Evenepoel the
\ncentrepiece of a super team. And when Red Bull set their sights on something in
\nsport, they usually tend to get it.<\/p>\n
The goal was always clear: Remco, in 2026.<\/p>\n
At the Tour de France this summer, Evenepoel finally made
\nhis long-awaited debut. He finished third overall, won a stage, and claimed the
\nwhite jersey, silencing most of his doubters that he had what it takes. Evenepoel
\ndid have the support of Mikel Landa that summer, which perhaps convinced him to
\nsay at Quick-Step a little while longer. The Belgian went on to make history
\nwith two gold medals at the Paris Olympic Games, and his star power then went
\nto new heights.<\/p>\n
Then the final fracture hit, Lefevere stepped down as CEO at
\nthe end of 2024.<\/p>\n
Jorgen For\u00e9 took over, but the team\u2019s fate was already
\nsealed. Denk had the money and had the plan. And crucially, he had the patience
\nto get things done behind the scenes, all the while swatting away the media
\noutlets looking for information.<\/p>\n
In December, Evenepoel suffered a training crash and spent
\nfour months recovering from a shoulder injury. At the 2025 Tour, he abandoned
\nafter three disastrous days in the Pyrenees, where he had enjoyed no help from his
\nteam in the high mountains. Without the injury, the outcome may have been
\ndifferent, but the deeper issue remained. He simply did not have the team
\naround him.<\/p>\n
It had taken nearly five years, but the move was always
\ninevitable. The week after he abandoned the Tour, journalist Daniel Benson confirmed
\nthat the signing was as good as done. Yesterday, it finally became official.<\/p>\n
But how did Lefevere and Quick-Step take the news?<\/p>\n
![\"Lefevere](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/patricklefevere-remcoevenepoel-6892297cd48ce.jpg@webp.webp\")
<\/p>\n
Lefevere was crucial in the development of Evenepoel<\/p>\n
“Since I stepped down as CEO of Soudal Quick-Step, I\u2019m
\nno longer involved in transfers or any team matters. Agreement-wise, I\u2019m also
\nnot allowed to communicate about transfers \u2013 not even about Remco,” Lefevere
\nwrote on social media. “Please don\u2019t call me. This is the only
\ncommunication I will make.”<\/p>\n
In Evenepoel\u2019s home country, the media has been divided on
\nthe transfer. Het Nieuwsblad questioned the way the deal was done. \u201cLeaving the
\nteam before the end of his contract shows little respect for his employer,\u201d the
\npaper wrote. \u201cHad Evenepoel left his team at the end of 2026, he would have had
\nlittle to reproach him for. Now, there remains that bitter aftertaste of
\ningratitude and egocentrism.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jan Bakelants, writing in Het Laatste Nieuws, called it \u201ca
\ncomplex transfer. It\u2019s almost a hostile takeover.\u201d<\/p>\n
De Morgen was blunt, \u201cAnyone who leaves the Lefevere team,
\nnow the For\u00e9 team, usually performs less well\u2026 We’ll have to wait and see if it
\nbenefits him. As a footballer, things went downhill after his transfer.\u201d<\/p>\n
The criticism isn\u2019t surprising. Evenepoel has been Belgium\u2019s
\nbiggest cycling talent in a generation. To lose him, early and to a
\nGerman-backed squad, is a national bruise.<\/p>\n
Who else is at Red Bull – BORA – hansgrohe?<\/p>\n
Evenepoel won\u2019t arrive alone. According to La Derni\u00e8re Heure,
\nhe\u2019ll be joined by his longtime DS Klaas Lodewyck, a mechanic and a soigneur
\nfrom Quick-Step. Add to that Sven Vanthourenhout, the architect of his Belgian
\nnational team successes, and it\u2019s clear: BORA isn\u2019t just signing a rider,
\nthey\u2019re building a program around Evenepoel.<\/p>\n
![\"Roglic](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/primozroglic-688f28ffbf433.jpg@webp.webp\")
<\/p>\n
Roglic will still race for BORA in 2026<\/p>\n
There\u2019s already serious talent on the roster. Primoz Roglic,
\nthough 36 by 2026, showed at this year\u2019s Tour that he still has the legs. His
\nthird-week breakaway fireworks were some of the most exciting moments in the
\nAlps, and he finished top ten in GC, despite entering the race undercooked from
\nGiro injuries.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s Florian Lipowitz. After Evenepoel abandoned
\nthis year\u2019s Tour, Lipowitz stepped into the void, literally. He claimed third
\noverall and the white jersey and held both to Paris. Routinely the best of the
\nrest behind Pogacar and Vingegaard, he\u2019s BORA\u2019s rising GC force. Jai Hindley,
\nDani Martinez, and Aleksandr Vlasov round out a stacked lineup of climbing
\ndepth.<\/p>\n
How Evenepoel and Lipowitz co-exist will be one of the
\nsport\u2019s biggest storylines heading into 2026. Before Evenepoel can take the
\nfight to Pogacar and Vingegaard, he\u2019ll have to prove he\u2019s on top of his new
\nteam.<\/p>\n
With Pogacar locked in at UAE and Vingegaard still
\ndominating with Visma, there was only one path forward for Evenepoel. To win
\nthe Tour, he needed a Tour-winning team, and Quick-Step could never offer that.
\nAnd after years of loyalty, failed merger talks, and an endless rumour mill,
\nEvenepoel made the call to walk away.<\/p>\n
He may be criticized for leaving a year early, but the gap
\nbetween ambition and reality had grown too wide to ignore. This transfer has
\nbeen over four years in the making.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From the moment he turned pro with Soudal \u2013 Quick-Step in 2019, Evenepoel was in the spotlight.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-49531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49531","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=49531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Evenepoel](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/evenepoel-1228001610.jpg@webp.webp\")
<\/p>\n![\"Evenepoel](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1133182913-64ecd94d9a0d1.jpg@webp.webp\")
<\/p>\n