"He decides to kick a water bottle...": Chris Horner on Remco Evenepoel's short temper losing him World Championships

The 2025 World Championships were directed by superstars Tadej Pogacar and Remco Evenepoel, once again keeping the two rainbow jerseys available to themselves. And while the Belgian dominated the individual time trial, in road race he had to overcome his own share of troubles. Especially those of a technical character.

The first 10 laps of the race went relatively calm with a gradual elimination off the back of the group that wasn't affecting the favourites much (except the abandons of Ilan Van Wilder and Marc Soler after a mass crash). The action was expected on the main attraction of the day - Mount Kigali. And Pogacar didn't disappoint with two accelerations of which the latter proved lethal. However Evenepoel let go of the front already after the first one.

"He started to move to the right and looking back over shoulder," Chris Horner looks back at the race. With the events of this season on his mind, the American immediately had a flashback of Evenepoel letting go of Pogacar at La Fleche Wallonne, Liege-Bastogne-Liege or Tour de France.

"And now I started sitting on the chest to feel like, 'oh no, is this the fourth time during the 2025 season that Remco Evenepoel is going to blow up at this moment?' Remember, he was sitting locked onto this group, looked like he was fairly comfortable, but then drifted off to the right, started dropping back."

The 25-year-old was the first in the wheel of Pogacar in his first acceleration, but then completely withdrew from the head of the race. The explanation for that came rather quickly as camera found the Olympic champion fighting his own bicycle.

"Remco Evenepoel did not just pull out of the line and start to drop off that front group of five riders, but he started dropping back through the whole of the peloton back there. He's having all kinds of problems. When he comes over the summit you see him hopping on his bike, trying to figure something out. The pictures drop down, and we can tell he doesn't have a flat tyre... but something's happening."

"Nobody's working well together, they're starting to attack each other. This tactic doesn't work, you got to get guys on the front. And we see that in this 35 rider group, Belgium have at least three riders in there, because Cian Uijtdebroeks and Quinten Hermans are there, we got at least four Australians, France has multiple riders, Denmark has some help up there... If only you could keep the chemistry together."

"Remco Evenepoel starts realising that he's got to do a bike change, so with about six laps to go, he's pulling over at just about 90 kilometres to go, so he literally just closed up and now he's pulling over again."

Thanks to compatriots Quinten Hermans and Louis Vervaeke, Evenepoel is able to get back in touch with the main group rather quickly. However Pogacar is already a minute up the road alongside Isaac del Toro and temporarily Juan Ayuso. The chasers have numbers to pull the Slovenian back in, but cooperation is lacking.

And just then, the leaders in main group finally come together as Australia, Belgium and Italy put their men to work on the front - a moment Horner looked forward for years: "I start getting all excited, I'm like this is what I've been telling you guys needs to happen for four or five seasons. You gotta let Tadej go up the road and put teammates on the front."

However, this situation doesn't last long as Jay Vine and Michael Matthews (Australia) quickly fade out, Italy stops working and Belgium is alone at the work. To add to that, Evenepoel needs to change his bike. Again.

"All of a sudden Remco starts raising his hand, he's drifting to the back of the group. He's getting angry, because he can't find the cars," Horner analyzes the Belgian's behaviour. "So Remco is trying to find his team car so he can get off his black bike that he got in the feed zone and get back onto another race bike, because the black one's not working well."

"Finally Remco pulls over to the right side of the road, and hops off his bike. He's waiting, but there's no cars coming, nothing. Then Shimano car shows up - he's upset at the Shimano car and waves him off. Now his hands are up in the air, he's getting frustrated, his team car is nowhere, then he decides to kick the water bottle in frustration."

Evenepoel jumps on what is already his third bike - one that finally seems to be set up properly. With another massive effort from Quinten Hermans, Evenepoel flies back into the main pack from which more riders have attacked away in the meantime. But Evenepoel has no problem closing the gap on his own.

"We see a different Remco Evenepoel now once he gets on the gold bike," Horner points out.

Then a strong chasing group forms behind lone leader Pogacar. However Evenepoel's colleagues on the road (Ben Healy and Mattias Skjelmose) are already out of energy and so the gap to Pogacar slowly starts to grow again as Evenepoel is doing most of the work among the trio.

"We see the head shake there from Remco, as he knows he's not gaining on Pogacar," Horner notices, "so Remco throws in an acceleration and leaves the other two behind."

There's still a slight hope that Pogacar will perhaps make a mistake to make up for Evenepoel's bad luck earlier, but no such event happens. The Olympic champion arrives to a silver medal, minute and half behind the Slovenian who goes back to back to win with attacks from 100 km to go mark.

Evenepoel will have a chance to get his revenge this week at the European Championships where he should meet Pogacar in the road race again. Already this Wednesday, Evenepoel will have an opportunity to become the undisputed king of time trials by winning the continental championship chrono to put him on Olympic, World and European throne at the same time.