{"id":317639,"date":"2025-12-15T18:35:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T18:35:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/317639\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T18:35:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T18:35:15","slug":"i-want-to-try-to-be-the-best-athlete-belgium-has-ever-known-remco-evenepoel-inspired-by-eddy-merckx-after-fifth-sportsman-of-the-year-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/317639\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I want to try to be the best athlete Belgium has ever known’ \u2013 Remco Evenepoel inspired by Eddy Merckx after fifth Sportsman of the Year award"},"content":{"rendered":"

Remco Evenepoel<\/a> was named as the Belgian Sportsman of the Year for a fifth consecutive time on Sunday, with Eddy Merckx’s record of six titles acting as inspiration for Evenepoel’s 2026 season.<\/p>\n

25-year-old Evenepoel has been a professional rider for seven years and only missed out on the Sportsman of the Year award when crashes or injury disrupted his success.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

“In my opinion, this is the greatest award you can win as a Belgian athlete. I’m truly honoured to receive it again,” Evenepoel said after flying to Belgium for the day from Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe<\/a>‘s training camp in Mallorca.<\/p>\n

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The event organisers arranged a private plane for Evenepoel; he trained in the morning and was back in Spain late on Sunday evening.<\/p>\n

“In the seven years I was a professional cyclist, I won five times. And the two years I didn’t win, I was injured,” Evenepoel said.<\/p>\n

He’s now closing in on Merckx, who won the Sportsman of the Year award six consecutive times between 1969 and 1974, the peak years of his career.<\/p>\n

“I’m not far from that anymore, and I still have a few years ahead of me. It’s a nice goal to reach and surpass.<\/p>\n

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“It would be wonderful and an honour to equal such a big name. I want to try to be the best athlete Belgium has ever known,” Evenepoel said, with natural ambition but without diminishing Merckx’s success.<\/p>\n

At the weekend, Forbes in Belgium also named Evenepoel as part of their ’30 Under 30′ list, and Evenepoel appeared on the cover of the magazine with a joint interview with his wife Oumi.<\/p>\n

He won the Belgian, European and world time trial titles in 2025, but it was a season of mixed emotions after a winter crash massively disrupted his training and delayed his season debut. He won the Caen time trial stage at the Tour de France<\/a> but then abandoned the race due to fatigue.<\/p>\n

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“It was a year of ups and downs,” Evenepoel explained to the Flemish media at the Belgian Sportsman of the Year event.<\/p>\n

“A good start, a difficult middle section, and a strong finish. I’m very happy with how I finished the season. That gives me a lot of motivation and morale to get through the winter strong.”<\/p>\n

The Red Bull training camp marked the official start of Evenepoel’s time at the German super team after he ended his contract with Soudal-QuickStep<\/a> a year early. He cannot yet wear the standout Red Bull jersey due to contractual reasons, but is focused and motivated by a new chapter in his career.<\/p>\n

“It’s fun,” he said about his new team. “I’m very happy with the change; it’s been quite a long process to get it done, but I’m very happy. I think it’s a team that suits me very well and my character and my ambitions.”<\/p>\n

Evenepoel and Red Bull were tempted to ride the Tour of Flanders and the Giro d’Italia in 2026 but ultimately opted for a more traditional and conservative season, with the Tour de France and UCI Road World Championships in Canada the major goals. He’ll share team leadership at the Tour with Florian Lipowitz<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He will make his Red Bull racing debut in the Mallorca Challenge TTT race, before heading to the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana stage race.<\/p>\n

“I just want a good season, which is easy-going with not so many crazy things, and I hope to end the season with no interruptions. The future plan will be the future plan,” Evenepoel explained.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Remco Evenepoel was named as the Belgian Sportsman of the Year for a fifth consecutive time on Sunday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":317640,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-317639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}