Evenepoel's plan "just didn't work today" as he lost serious time for Suisse GC battle

Remco Evenepoel came to the Tour de Suisse as one of the main favourites, and had been until today deep in the fight for it. Today he struggled en route to Novazzano and took a critical blow to his aspirations.

“I got tougher lap by lap. It was a bit similar to the first ride. Back then I had the right legs, today they weren't very good. It was certainly not very bad, but it was certainly not good enough to follow the best riders," Evenepoel said in a post-race interview. The Belgian rider had until today ridden at top level, but the heat had him suffer badly and loose contact with the GC favourites.

As did Stephen Williams early on in the day, Evenepoel also cracked. Initially returning to the peloton after being dropped the first time, but being left behind for good with ten kilometers to go. Despite his best efforts to limit the losses, Evenepoel got to the finish 2:12 minutes behind Aleksandr Vlasov and has dropped down to 19th in the overall classification.

He described the final section of the stage: “I could handle a hard pace, but they always started to climb full on those sharp nods. And that just didn't work today. Van Wilder and Masnada brought me back, but I had forgotten that last climb. That was really a downer. I thought we would ride to the finish and I might have been able to bite on that climb.”

Now 2:22 minutes down on Vlasov, the chances of fighting for the win, or even the podium of the race are slim. But he remains upbeat about his chances of making a resurgence: "There are still two tough stages to come. I keep fighting, even with the time trial in mind. However, it is now clear that I should not lose any more time," Evenepoel concluded.