{"id":44403,"date":"2025-08-05T00:41:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T00:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/44403\/"},"modified":"2025-08-05T00:41:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T00:41:08","slug":"coming-back-at-yall-remco-evenepoel-back-in-the-saddle-16-days-after-tour-de-france-abandon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/44403\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Coming back at y’all’- Remco Evenepoel back in the saddle 16 days after Tour de France abandon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Remco Evenepoel<\/a> has completed what appears to be his first training ride, 16 days after abandoning the Tour de France<\/a> with fatigue.<\/p>\n

The Belgian recalled the first anniversary of becoming double Olympic champion in Paris in 2024 on Instagram on Sunday and then posted information on a 105km ride on his Strava account on Monday.<\/p>\n

The three-hour ride started from near his Belgian home in Schepdaal, west of Brussels and headed north towards Dendermonde and then south to Ninove.<\/p>\n

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As is often the case, Evenepoel named his ride with a phrase from French rapper Werenoi (J\u00e9r\u00e9my Bana Owana) who died in May.<\/p>\n

“If only you knew how much time we’ve already lost. In the urge to make up for that time, many things have bothered us.”<\/p>\n

He added a subtitle of ‘Coming back at y’all’, with the Flemish media quickly speculating it was the start of Evenepoel’s training for the UCI Road World Championships<\/a> in Rwanda at the end of September.<\/p>\n

Evenepoel has kept a low profile as he recovered from the fatigue of the Tour, revealing he also suffered with a sinus infection<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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He has long played down reports of a transfer from Soudal-QuickStep to Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe<\/a> but the controversial change of teams a year before the end of his contract is reportedly imminent.<\/p>\n

Soudal-QuickStep announced the signing of Jasper Stuyven<\/a> last week and Edward Planckaert today, as they boost their Classics roster, with no major signs to strengthen their Grand Tour squad around Evenepoel.<\/p>\n

Any transfer would have to be agreed by Evenepoel, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe and Soudal-QuickStep, with UCI approval also part of the process. However the deal appears to be in place, with reports that Evenepoel will pay around \u04045 million to exit his current contract a year early and Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe<\/a> will pay a \u04042 million fee to make the deal happen.<\/p>\n

Evenepoel won the stage 5 time trial around Caen<\/a> and was third overall in the general classification for the first half of the Tour. However, he suffered in the Peyragudes mountain time trial and then climbed off during stage 14 to Superbagn\u00e8res, struggling with fatigue.<\/p>\n

Evenepoel explained how he rushed to prepare for the Tour after fracturing his shoulder in early December as he started winter training. He made his season debut at De Brabantse Pijl on April 18 but then struggled at the Crit\u00e9rium du Dauphin\u00e9 and eventually on the roads of the Tour.<\/p>\n

“The Tour de France was my main goal. After my crash in December, I did everything with one clear objective: to be ready in time for July. The goal gave me focus, but it also created a lot of time pressure,” Evenepoel wrote after leaving the Tour.<\/p>\n

“That day became one of the rawest and most vulnerable moments of my career. I broke and strangely enough, I\u2019m proud of it. It takes strength to show that things don\u2019t always go your way. That even when you want something deeply, sometimes your body has other plans.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeaving the Tour was the hardest decision I\u2019ve made in a long time. But it was the right one. For once, I truly listened to my body. and I hope that moment sends a message, especially to other young riders watching: it\u2019s okay to stop. It\u2019s okay to feel tired. It\u2019s okay to be human.”<\/p>\n

Evenepoel is not expected to ride the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a but if he can return to form he is likely to lead the Belgian team at the hilly World Championships in Rwanda.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Remco Evenepoel has completed what appears to be his first training ride, 16 days after abandoning the Tour…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-44403","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\/44403","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=44403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}