"He might have won two more stages" - Former teammate very surprised about Remco Evenepoel's Tour de France withdrawal

Remco Evenepoel was one of the stars present at the start of the Tour de France and he made his presence felt with a victory in the race's first time-trial. On the mountain time-trial to Peyragudes however he was completely out of his regular level on the bike, and hours after he would abandon the race on stage 14, much to the confusion of Zdenek Stybar who commented on it.

The Belgian had been suffering on the climbs and was dropped on the Col du Tourmalet. With several hours of racing on the climbs afterwards, the decision was made to end his participation at the Tour. He had started the day in third place, and in the lead of the youth classification.

"He had Tim Merlier and Bert Van Lerberghe behind him in the grupetto. Then convince him to ride in that grupetto," Stybar said in an analysis for TNT Sports. "Don't stop at that point, just keep going. It will be difficult, especially mentally, but you'll get over it. I'm convinced he should have done this. It's the biggest race of the year, and Remco is still a young rider."

The reasons why are not known, it could've been a multitude of factors. Evenepoel himself spoke to the media yesterday despite the horrible day: "We'll investigate and see what happens. Everyone knows I've had a terribly bad winter. But we'll all take another look. Maybe there's something wrong with my body. I can't necessarily say anything at this point."

For Stybar however, he believes his former teammate should've been able to get through the day and look at what was possible to still do at this Tour de France. "He's already achieved incredible things, but on the other hand, the team is built around him," the Czech argues.

"I was part of that. The DNA of that team has completely changed, for Remco. So when he wins, everyone applauds him, but he also has to be willing to deal with difficult moments. And you do give up some things. If he weren't ill, he might have won two more stages".