"It could have ended much worse for Remco" - Soudal - Quick-Step maintain positive outlook for Evenepoel's 2025 after training crash

Multiple broken bones, a dislocated collarbone and emergency surgery was far from the desired plan for Remco Evenepoel's winter. Sadly though, after colliding with a BPost van earlier this week, that is now the reality for the Belgian.

Despite the aforementioned injuries for the Soudal - Quick-Step leader, his team have consistently maintained a positive outlook in the days since the crash, determined to not let it ruin plan for the 2015 season. On the latest episode of RadioCorsa, Alessandro Tegner, the marketing and communication manager of the Belgian team continued to look to the coming season with optimism for his team's star rider. 

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"With a dynamic like that, it could have ended much worse for Remco," began Tegner's assessment of the incident. "It is clear, however, that it is a stop that has to be considered and now he will have to recover calmly. There is time to fully recover, if it had to happen it was better now than, as it happened this year, in April."

"For two weeks he will have to remain immobilised, his arm is immobilised to recover from the injury to his scapula and clavicle, after which we will try to figure out how to start this 2025," he continues. "For our part, the appointment with him is in Calpe in January, in the team's second training camp, and we will make the appropriate evaluations. Clearly we were also expecting him here in December: from a purely marketing point of view, an incident of this type at this time also becomes a problem, because in any case the first team retreats in December are the retreats where all the publicity photos, publicity videos, are taken, and he is a bit of a beacon for the team. So in that respect we had to revise the schedule a bit there too."

As Tegner insists though, Evenepoel's rest and recovery is the most important thing at this point in time. "The important thing, though, is that he recovers well, stays calm, and then in January we'll have plenty of time to talk about it again," he explains. "Right now I think it is a little too early to make any predictions, not least because his approach to 2025 would have been a little slower than in the past."

Given it's not Evenepoel's first big crash though, the Belgian has experience on getting back to his best after a blow. "He crashed in April in the Basque Country and from there it was a chase to try and regain decent form for the Tour de France. He raced the Tour, with the results that are there for all to see, and after the Tour he held on and became two-time Olympic champion," Tegner recalls. "After the Olympics he returned to competition at the Tour of Britain and then had a final season still at a high level, placed very well at the World Championships and finished second behind an unbeatable Pogacar on the roads of Lombardy. So we decided to give him a slightly longer rest period, to let him recover a bit better. The truth, then, is that no plans have yet been made for his 2025, so everything is postponed until January. We will handle this calmly."

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