"He’s got bad legs but his head has rolled off" - Remco Evenepoel lacks guiding figure at Quick-Step claims Adam Blythe

Remco Evenepoel's 2025 Tour de France came to a sad end earlier this week, as the Belgian abandoned the race on stage 14 after being dropped by his GC rivals early. According to British ex-pro Adam Blythe, Evenepoel is lacking a guiding figure at Soudal - Quick-Step to help him battle through such tough situations.

"I think he needed someone who had a higher profile than him in terms of results in that team," Blythe said of last year's podium finisher at the Tour de France, on TNT Sports' coverage of the Grand Tour. "If the likes of someone like Philippe Gilbert, an ex-team-mate, was with him, I think he could have got him by the back and said ‘you ride to the top of this climb with me and then see how it goes’."

"He doesn't have that person behind him to say, ‘no, you do this out of respect for your team’. And I'm not saying that he didn't try, but I think you needed an elder statesman in that situation," Blythe adds. "For me, it looks like he’s got bad legs but his head has rolled off."

Ultimately of course, that wasn't the case and Evenepoel did step off. Whilst Blythe was somewhat questioning that decision, his colleague on TNT Sports, Aussie sprint icon Robbie McEwen feels the decision made by Soudal - Quick-Step and Evenepoel is more than likely the correct one.

"I'm not going to condemn him for pulling out," McEwen explained. "I mean, yeah, I'm sure he could have ridden through the rest of the stage and got to the finish completely blown away off GC. But there's so many things we don't know. We don't know how long this has been creeping up – they’re not going to give us any medical information about exactly what's going on. So, I think it's too early to condemn him and say he shouldn't have pulled out."

"Yeah, I think physically, he could have ridden through to the end, but probably not made his mark in the rest of the race," McEwen continues. "So they [Soudal Quick-Step] consider, ‘this is our prized possession. Let's have the short pain, pull out of the Tour and figure out what's going on’."

With the transfer speculation that always surrounds Evenepoel sent into over drive earlier this Tour by rumours linking the Olympic champion to Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe, McEwen admits this could be the last we see of Evenepoel in a Soudal - Quick-Step jersey at the Tour de France.

"The rest of the season is coming and get some return on investment rather than push on while he's still got something wrong with him and then maybe compromise the entire rest of the season, maybe going into even next season. Although we're not sure if they care about next season because the rumour mill is saying different things," concludes the Australian's analysis.