Remco Evenepoel: "My sole focus was to do a strong time trial"

Alongside Filippo Ganna, Remco Evenepoel was one of the main favourites for today's opening time-trial at Tirreno-Adriatico. The Belgian youngster finished second, but also put on a significant move towards his overall classification ambitions.

“I think I could maybe go a little faster but at the end of the day I think I took the maximum out of my legs, so second is maybe the best result. I wasn’t interested in how much time I could put into the other riders, my sole focus was to do a strong time trial," Evenepoel said after the finish. Only 2 seconds behind eventual stage winner Filippo Ganna at the intermediate sprint, Evenepoel had serious chances of going for the stage win. However as the final section saw a tailwind, the Italian managed to put serious time into his rivals as it came down more to pure power.

"I would have liked to be in the blue jersey today, but white is also nice. Now I’ll recover after my effort and continue to take it day by day, while helping the team go for some nice results at this beautiful race”, said Remco after the podium ceremony," he concluded.

If nothing changes into the hilly stages, Remco will be a candidate to go into the lead of the race in the fourth stage. The queen stage will surely put him in difficulties, but the Belgian has some stages, today included, that will suit his attributes and will see him in the fight for the win of the race.