"At the moment that is simply not an option" - Soudal - Quick-Step honest about Remco Evenepoel 2025 Classics involvement

Across the season so far, we've already seen big performances from a number of the leading names in the peloton. One of the riders still notable yet to make a mark though, is Soudal - Quick-Step's double Olympic gold medal winning leader, Remco Evenepoel, who remains out of action since a training crash back in December.

Ever since that nasty BPost van crash near his home in Belgium, Evenepoel has remained absent from competitive racing. With the Spring now in full swing however, the absence of the Belgian superstar is being felt more than ever at Soudal - Quick-Step. So the lingering question that remains, is when and where Evenepoel will return to the fold. Can the 25-year-old still make an impact in the Spring Classics in 2025?

"With Remco we have someone in the team who fits in the list of super talents such as Pogacar, Van der Poel, Van Aert, Ganna, Pedersen and Pidcock. So it is certainly possible that we use him in the classics. But at the moment that is simply not an option, because he is still recovering from his injury," explains Soudal - Quick-Step sports director Iljo Keisse in conversation with Wielerflits.

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Positively though, Keisse doesn't totally rule out the prospect of Evenepoel being back in time for the likes of Liege-Bastogne-Liege in late April. "In the long term it is certainly possible, why not? Now we are aiming for the Ardennes," Keisse assesses. "Remco continues to make good progress in Spain and will join the Giro team on an altitude training camp. That is already positive."

And so, for the E3 Saxo Classic tomorrow, Soudal - Quick-Step will continue to try and navigate their Spring without Evenepoel. “For us, it is currently a matter of looking at each race individually to see which selection we can start with,” says Keisse. “You know that the E3 Saxo Classic has become a kind of mini-Tour of Flanders in recent years. It is the most difficult race of the spring for us, and we have sometimes ridden away in recent years.”

"The Tour of Flanders is something else. That race is a bit longer, which allows the diesels to come up. I don't expect us to compete for the win there right away, but you never know. I certainly don't see us getting the blows we sometimes got in Harelbeke. Although the result there was still lacking for our team last year, we have to be honest about that," Keisse adds. “There are teams that come with a whole army that we can’t match at the moment. But that certainly shouldn’t be an excuse not to race and not to try. That inequality in terms of budget has always been there, even in our peak years. We’re going to make the best of it and get the most out of it in the races that are difficult for us.”

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