Remco Evenepoel 'certainly not yet in top form' - Belgian dominates early season with "85%" form
CyclingMonday, 09 February 2026 at 10:51
Remco Evenepoel has started his season at the Challenge Mallorca and 'played' with the competition at the Trofeo Serra de Tramuntana and Trofeo Andratx, attacking when he felt like it and achieving comfortable wins in both. At the Volta a Comunitat Valenciana it was a much more competitive field that was facing him, however the Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe rider has won both key stages of the race and has soared to the overall win.
"That gives me confidence, and by finishing it off, I give my teammates confidence. We started the season in a really good flow. Hopefully, everyone can maintain that." He's improved on his offensive ability: "That I can attack really hard and maintain that. We've worked on that a lot."
Evenepoel saw the race's time trial get neutralized - where he raced to victory nevertheless - however even in the adverse conditions, he was able to win the GC as the queen stage into Teulada saw the Olympic Champion in great form and dropping the entire competition in the small but steep climb to Puig Llorença.
But this is, according to him, not his best form. "This is still preparation. I think I'm around 85%. I haven't done any altitude training yet and I'm just at my spring weight. I can definitely lose some weight towards the Tour," Evenepoel said in words to Sporza.
It comes as a great sign for the Belgian, who couldn't have kicked off his time with Red Bull any better. Besides the many victories, he has found a team that was able to support him very well, has given freedom to other teammates of his, and also looked incredibly solid even against a UAE that had João Almeida, Brandon McNulty and Marc Soler present.
He's already put in some strong climbing performances, well before the start of the season of both Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard. "It's not that I've peaked more than anyone else. I've just completed my training. If I have a good winter, I'm always in pretty good shape quickly. But certainly not yet in top form."
Catalunya a key test
Evenepoel looked to be using these races to work on his form but above all replicate efforts that are to be done in the big races of the season. At the UAE Tour now, he is likely to be the main favourite for overall win, as Jonas Vingegaard pulled out of the race and Isaac del Toro has become the rider to watch.
But "we're not going to get overconfident and just take it one step at a time. I also want to be in good shape to try and win at the UAE Tour. Then comes another period of recovery and another peak in Catalunya." Catalunya, with its several mountain stages, incredibly competitive field and strategic positioning in the calendar, should be Evenepoel's biggest test before the summer.
If no injuries are to change the plans, Evenepoel is set to team up with Florian Lipowitz and lineup up against Vingegaard, Almeida, Mikel Landa, Derek Gee, Felix Gall, Carlos Rodríguez, Enric Mas and Santiago Buitrago - amongst others.
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- For sure you are not a Tadej fan, but this post is unfair. Pog has made little fuss about his few injuries. Winning Strade Bianche with fresh rashes full of thorns? He never used his knee as an excuse in the 2025 Tour (and why would he, he won). The look on his face in the last metres was joy and relief, not disappointment. But I was interested to read up on the Flemish name for LBL that you used, so thanks for that.Hills3309-02-2026
- What Mathews is complaining about is actually making cycling better, not worse. Racing just for sprint wins is boring to the average fan. Mathews seems to be complaining about having to race hard throughout the stage and having a good team in order to be a player in the finale - I don't get his argument.paule09-02-2026
- It was pretty well documented that year, as UAE were not looking for excuses, but to make the best of a worst-scenario wrist-injury situation and deliver something for their sponsors after the previous year's defeat. So Gianetti announced an in-form Adam Yates as co-leader on the eve of the Tour, as 'there are no miracles in cycling' - if you can't put in the training, you can't win. Sean Kelly basically agreed, based on his own experience.Hills3309-02-2026
- No doubt Lemond knows of which he speaks. I do believe though, and I feel modern science and sports science supports this, the years of covert "doping" were as harmful to the riders than beneficial, if not much more harmful. All of these riders were guinea pigs with all sorts of unknown medications, dosages, effects, if any, positive or negative. The "physicians " using these research drugs and off label medications were 100% experimenting on everyone and everything. They absolutely did not have any tried and true method to guarantee any result, let alone any safe and beneficial result. While there certainly was a lot of cheating, the effects of the cheating is nowhere near as simple as many of the athletes remember or imagine. There were a lot of placebo results, even if it didn't put you in a hospital. It's also a contributing factor to the current discussions around " you mean to claim a non doped rider today can go faster than a doped rider from 25 years ago?" when we never stop to think just how clapped those road side drugs practices were. There was so much experimenting with very questionable substances by people with very questionable credentials, they were as likely to kill someone as make them perform better. That didn't stop people like Armstrong and company from cheating, but it does explain some of his bafflement at how modern training, nutrition and equipment can erase his times. Poor old Lance was probably not getting the magic he was paying so much money for. He was a fool on multiple levels.Barry09-02-2026
- Still, it does seem that Tadej's injuries are always overstated. His knee swelling was just a minor injury, and can't be an excuse for getting dropped by Wout (who was still recovering from worse injuries in 2024). The same goes for his Luik-Bastonaken-Luik wrist injury. Maybe it's because he suffers so few
Rafionain-Glas09-02-2026 - His criticisms of the current crop of unhuman talent racing today is ridiculous of course, but let's pause and get real for a moment shall we?: 512 wins. My God, that speaks for itself, absolutely incredible. No rider in the past several decades can touch that, outside of Merckx himself obviously. But to be fair, MVDP and Tadej aren't done either, so time will tell. Regarding his CX comments, he is just attempting to defend his brother's honor, I get it. Seeing his record beaten in the absolute, most dominant fashion has to hurt, but that's normal. At the same time however, his criticisms of MVDP are pretty weak. Last time I checked he can absolutely sprint with the best of them. Furthermore, he has zero issues dropping everyone on the 22+% Koppenberg, nevermind soloing away from the pretenders to huge time gap victories in most of his races from Roubaix to every single CX race this year and more. It leaves little doubt that the man can certainly time trial when he needs to. It's arguably a better measure of his actual ability vs creative uses of drag cheating, wind tunnel friendly, new technologies we see utilized in formal TT niche settings. I would think this fact would appeal to Rog DVMK, given the comparitively limited availability of wind tunnel tech to riders of his era. His unapologetic, outspoken, fearless defiance of the popular fanboy narratives is born of the same mentality that made him such a fantastic racer in his time. Anything less would have seen him washed out with the rest of the "also rans". He is simply frustrated by the fact that MVDP is as good as he (a classics master) and his brother Eric (a CX master) combined!urbantoreador08-02-2026
- Jews in Jewllywood just wanna make money. How about the bio-film on Melania - the Lance film will crater similarly.bike-anarkist08-02-2026
- Unusually well co-ordinated result for Belgium.Mistermaumau08-02-2026
- I don’t know, and you don’t know, how it affected him or not. Tadej said it did, and he was not anywhere near the same rider as in prior wins or subsequent wins. so I have to think it did affect him. Remco crashed far before LBL, and it affected his TdF too (last year). It was a winter crash. And yes, huge props to Jonas for his comeback following his crash. two things can be true. Tadej was affected and Jonas also did an amazing ride.mij08-02-2026
- I guess by "clean" he means "only on amphetamine"?aphg108-02-2026
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