PRESS CONFERENCE Remco Evenepoel | "You can always have a plan A but I think we'll often need a plan B or C"

Soudal - Quick-Step were the first major team to host their press conference ahead of the 2025 Tour de France and it was an event packed with big figures. Not only Remco Evenepoel and Tim Merlier talked to the audience, but the presence of Tom Boonen was also a topic of conversation. CyclingUpToDate attended the event and we take a close look at Evenepoel's words.

The team's mix of two leaders, Evenepoel and Merlier, has long raised questions about the full focus on the Olympic Champion's GC ambitions. After finishing fourth at the Criterium du Dauphiné, Evenepoel put behind a rough winter and spring where he did little mountain preparation, and showed the level he hoped for.

Answer: "I've had a pretty horrible winter so we'll have to see how it goes through three weeks. Without proper winter training nowadays is annoying so we have to see day by day and just accept the way it will go".

A: I think it's going to be more hectic of course the way the sprinters are looking forward to the first days. So it will be completely different than last year. Am I looking forward to it? Nope. But I have to do it. It will already be an important day on Saturday with the team, we will just try to survive and at the end of the week we'll see who will get out of the battlefield without scratches or injuries.

A: I think seconds. Time-trial is not really a time-trial but a summit finish but alone. The second one is just going to be an all-out effort to the top and the first one is a proper time-trial so I think it's a nice one, not so technical, it's the reason why we did the nationals last week - to have the last preparation for the flat TT. It's going to be a nice opportunity to try and win that stage. With that also maybe the yellow jersey to grab at that point. I will attack the time-trials as I always do to try and win it.

Sign up here and build your winning team for the Fantasy Tour de France (budget) and compete for at least $11,725/€10,000/£8,525 in prizes!

A: As any other rider, day by day. Try to survive, try to get through the first 10 days without any falls without any problems, physically and just on all aspects actually... I think everybody knows that the real GC Tour will start in the second week with the Pyrenees and of course the third week. So I think it will be all about patience and then try to save as much energy for the last two weeks.

A: First of all you need to arrive in the final and then race it, so that's already two races in one race. And then yeah I think we saw how the first stage of the Dauphiné went, so I think we have a few finals that can go like that depending on the situation and stuff like that. So the most important is to just try to acomplish the first goal, get a stage win with Tim or myself in the TT. Once that is cleared out, we can aproach the next stages and weeks with less stress. So we'll just have to face the stages how they come to us. You can always have a plan A but I think we'll often need a plan B or C. It's something we're all professional to adapt to and it depends how it will go.

Team DS Tom Steels has also confirmed that Evenepoel is unlikely to be on leadout duties for his teammate:

A: That's hard to predict right now but the chance is small I must say. It will really depend on the situation itself.