“Miracles do not exist” - Bakelants casts doubt on Evenepoel’s Tour de France chances

Remco Evenepoel’s fourth-place finish at the 2025 Critérium du Dauphiné came with mixed reviews. While the Soudal – Quick-Step leader once again demonstrated his world-class time trial abilities with a stage win, he finished well adrift of Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard in the mountains, and not everyone believes there’s enough time left to close the gap before the Tour de France.

Among the sceptics is former pro Jan Bakelants, who offered a blunt assessment in Het Laatste Nieuws. “Remco Evenepoel has no chance of winning the Tour de France,” he said. “The gap to Vingegaard and Pogačar seems to be even bigger than last year. It is still two and a half weeks until the start, but miracles do not exist.”

It’s a bleak verdict, especially given that Evenepoel finished seventh at last year’s Dauphiné before going on to claim third overall at the Tour, winning the white jersey in the process. But for Bakelants, this year’s race showed not only a deeper hierarchy at the top, but also a key structural disadvantage.

“In Saturday’s stage Evenepoel was already alone, while other teams still had five riders in the favourites group,” he pointed out. “For a candidate for overall victory, a good team in the Tour is necessary. But Remco is not a candidate for winner at the moment.”

What particularly irks Bakelants is the messaging from Evenepoel’s camp. “I am a little annoyed by the way his team management tries to calm that down,” he said. “The line between ‘trust the process’ and naivety is often very thin. It is not bad to raise the white flag now about winning the Tour.”

He even interpreted Soudal – Quick-Step’s decision to bring sprinters Tim Merlier to the Tour as an admission of reality. “That is as much as saying: we cannot win the Tour and we are trying to get the most out of it with stage wins.”

Still, Bakelants was not without praise. Evenepoel’s time trial win impressed him more than expected and, in his view, it should be a cornerstone of the team’s strategy. “His most important objective in the Tour must be to win the time trial in Caen on day five and thus wear the yellow jersey until the Pyrenees.”

For Evenepoel, who thrives on attacking racing, Bakelants offered one final piece of advice. “The best thing he can do is race the first nine days of the Tour like he did in the opening stage of the Dauphiné: seize every opportunity that presents itself. To quote André Hazes Junior: ‘Take everything you can.’”