“If he doesn't win on Sunday, it's not good enough" - Patrick Lefevere on Remco Evenepoel Liege-Bastogne-Liege hopes

Due to Soudal - Quick-Step's lacklustre spring Classics season, a lot rest on the shoulders of Remco Evenepoel at Liege-Bastogne-Liege and the team's general manager Patrick Lefevere admits that anything other than victory will be a disappointment.

“Remco is two days back from Tenerife and we have arrived where I did not want to end up,” said the 68-year-old Lefevere in his column for Het Nieuwsblad. “If he doesn't win on Sunday, it's not good enough. Really, I feel sorry for him. That boy is under so much pressure. I sincerely feel sorry for him,” he adds doing nothing to alleviate that pressure on Evenepoel.

Winner in Liege twelve months ago, Evenepoel will have to overcome the considerable challenge of Tadej Pogacar this Sunday if he is to repeat his success and please Lefevere. “Remco has to quickly counter a triple but we all forget that he comes from an altitude training camp where he trained every day in good weather. He has to race in the rain on Sunday.”

“We had no leader in the Flemish classics. No one to pull things up. This is about personality and group dynamics, but especially about physical condition. You need a leader who the whole team knows can win the race," Lefevere continues, discussing Soudal-Quick-Step's disappointing early season. "Remco enforces that. Sunday and later also in the Giro.”