{"id":715547,"date":"2026-07-28T14:49:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T14:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/715547\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T14:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T14:49:08","slug":"ill-stay-focused-until-saturday-remco-evenepoels-24-hours-of-tour-de-france-celebrations-end-with-a-criterium-win-and-a-night-at-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/715547\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I’ll stay focused until Saturday’ \u2013 Remco Evenepoel’s 24 hours of Tour de France celebrations end with a criterium win and a night at home"},"content":{"rendered":"

Remco Evenepoel’s Tour de France<\/a> celebrations included a late night in Paris, a luxury hotel and victory in the first post-Tour criterium in Aalst, before the Belgian finally got to sleep in his own bed.<\/p>\n

Evenepoel will only take a real break after Saturday’s Cl\u00e1sica San Sebasti\u00e1n<\/a>, which he hopes to win for a record fourth time. He will also ride the Natourcriterium Roeselare on Tuesday night, with Flemish media reporting he is earning a fee of \u20ac50,000 per race.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) won another criterium in Boxmeer in the Netherlands, beating Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Premier Tech). Other riders will race a series of post-Tour criteriums in Belgium, the Netherlands and France in the next few weeks.<\/p>\n

Latest Videos FromCyclingnews<\/p>\n

“Aalst is my hometown. The race also fits perfectly into my schedule, because it allows me to stay active until the Cl\u00e1sica San Sebasti\u00e1n on Saturday, I can get my legs spinning at very high speed,” Evenepoel told the Flemish media on Monday, before doing a lap of the Aalst circuit in a car to greet the reported 75,000 crowd alongside the last Belgian Tour winner and Aalst native Lucien Van Impe.<\/p>\n

Evenepoel ‘beat’ new Belgian national champion Rune Herregodts (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Valentin Paret-Peintre (Soudal-QuickStep) in Aast before finally heading home for the first time after a month of intense racing that changed his career, his second place behind Tadej Poga\u010dar confirming that he can fight for victory in the Tour de France.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

“I got a lot of congratulations after my performance<\/a> in the Tour de France,” Evenepoel said after the 100km criterium.<\/p>\n

“The cobblestones here in Aalst are in almost exactly the same condition as in Paris on the Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es. At times, I felt like I was still in Paris. After a few more formalities, I can finally go home. Sleep in my own bed. That will feel good too. That feeling of stepping into your own home, a familiar environment, and this after a few weeks of hard work in Spain and France. Very nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

Twenty four hours before racing in Aalst, Evenepoel was on the Tour de France podium alongside Poga\u010dar and Isaac del Toro on the Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es. He then celebrated with his Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe team and sponsors in a Montmartre restaurant.<\/p>\n

Evenepoel’s wife revealed that they stayed in the luxury Le Meurice hotel near the Louvre museum but faced a 9am wake-up to travel to Belgium for the Aalst criterium.<\/p>\n

“We had a party with the team, with some food and drinks. A small celebration. Eventually, I was in bed at 2:30am. But it wasn’t too bad,” Evenepoel, who does not drink alcohol, explained.<\/p>\n

“My energy level isn’t too high at the moment but I still have a lot of motivation.”<\/p>\n

“It hasn’t all really sunk in yet,” he said of the Tour.<\/p>\n

“It was a wonderful month that has flown by. Now I’ll stay focused until Saturday; only then will it sink in.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Remco Evenepoel’s Tour de France celebrations included a late night in Paris, a luxury hotel and victory in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":715548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-715547","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\/715547","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=715547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/715548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}