Remco Evenepoel took time to warm down, recover and gather his thoughts before speaking about his performance in the opening Tour de France team time trial in Barcelona on Saturday.
The Belgian finished fifth fastest, 19 seconds slower than Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) but within touching distance of his other GC rivals and only seven seconds down on Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG).
However, his teammate Florian Lipowitz, third in last year’s Tour de France, was unable to hold Evenepoel’s wheel on the final climb due to a mistake in positioning and lost 35 seconds to Vingegaard. Although the two had a pact that there would be no waiting for the other, Lipowitz was not so happy at the finish and quickly left for the team hotel.
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“I don’t know what happened to Florian,” Evenepoel said, keen to focus on his own performance on the final climb.
“We made a deal that from the bottom of the first climb, I was going to set the pace to the top and then the other guys had to take the descent, then it was as fast as possible to the finish line.
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“We both fought for our own result. We took each other towards the last kilometre and from there on it was just as fast as possible to the finish line. We did that and I think we did the maximum we could as a team.”
Evenepoel is always ambitious but saw his glass half full, even on a hot and intense day in Barcelona that left riders gasping for air and hydration.
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“We did quite a good TT,” Evenepoel told Cyclingnews after also speaking in Dutch and French after his warm down beyond the finish area.
“If you look at the other teams, I think Ineos, Visma and UAE have stronger teams than us on paper. But I think we did a very good job. We took this as a one-day race; tomorrow the Tour really starts.”
The Belgian raced in the world time trial champion’s rainbow jersey, but this was a team effort. His Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe teammates started more slowly than their rivals, and two riders were distanced earlier than planned. Evenepoel took turns on the front throughout the 19.6km city centre course and then charged up the two climbs to the finish at Montjuic.
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“We knew on the flat we would be at a bit of a disadvantage compared to other teams, but we did the maximum we could. I think we did a pretty good result considering the other teams,” Evenepoel said.
We did a good result. I finished fifth, not too far from Jonas and also from the other guys in front. It’s important to look at the general classification positions, and there aren’t many riders ahead of me. The two best Grand Tour riders of our generation are among them. We will have a small debrief tonight, and then we look to tomorrow.”
Official results showed that Evenepoel was just two seconds slower than Pogačar and Vingegaard on the final 3.7km of the course that climbed to the finish via two ramps.
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