Is double Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel testing his skills in a new sport?

Remco Evenepoel had the best season of his career in 2024, and his recent adventure shows he’s got the skills on all sorts of bikes. The double Olympic champion joined his Soudal – Quick-Step teammates during a training ride on the De Panne and Koksijde beach.

Evenepoel was joined by beach experts Tim Merlier and Yves Lampaert, who hopefully showed him a couple of tricks. The beach racing discipline is very niche, but it certainly requires some very impressive skills, and Merlier is the current Belgian champion in beaching.

Whilst it’s safe to say Evenepoel is the best climber in the Quick-Step ranks, and he could leave his teammates in the dust in the high mountains during the grand tours, this was not the case on the beach. But whilst Merlier and his teammates used specialist beach bikes, Evenepoel decided to try his luck with a mountain bike. We can’t imagine that would have been the best fit for the beach ride, especially given the team covered a massive 60km during the ride.

This comes following Evenepoel and his teammates' training camp in the USA, where Soudal – Quick-Step began their preparation for next year’s Tour de France. There, the 24 year old Belgian superstar will hope to move closer to his main GC rivals, Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard.