Remco Evenepoel still a step below the competition according to Cyrille Guimard: "He cannot race with Pogacar and Vingegaard"
Cycling
Remco Evenepoel aims for the Tour de France this year, regardless of what may come out of it. The goal is experience, but naturally to battle the likes of Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard who have been at the top over the past three years. French analyst Cyrille Guimard believes the Belgian is still a level below however.
"Does he believe it? He answered this question by saying that he hoped to finish in the top 5. Would he have become the Belgian Gaudu?" Guimard jokes in an analysis for Cyclism'Actu. "I'm sorry but Remco Evenepoel has no right to talk like that. It was well formatted or he understood a certain number of things. Today, and this calls into question what I said two, three or four years ago, he doesn't really give himself the means to win a Grand Tour. I find it a little thick. As I saw him in the Vuelta a España last year, he cannot race with Pogacar and Vingegaard."
The Belgian is an expert on hilly and mountainous one-day races, which has earned him world titles, monuments and other high-level classics at all levels. This is something that someone likes Jonas Vingegaard for example is very far from achieving. However, Evenepoel aims to become a Grand Tour specialist as the Dane is. Having won the Vuelta a España in 2022, he has shown the potential to win the Tour de France as well, but when it comes to the high mountains questions arise if he can match the two riders who have overwhelmingly dominated the competition in France in recent years.
Guimard also comments on Evenepoel's teammate Julian Alaphilippe, who is starting the season at the Tour Down Under and has confirmed that he will not be aiming at the Tour, but instead at the Giro d'Italia this year. "It is not because you act like a rock singer during a swimsuit presentation that it demonstrates that you have, deep within yourself, rediscovered the desire, the motivation and the entourage who will help you," he says of the former World Champion, who has been on several of the team's social media videos over the past few days in seemingly good mood in Australia.
Read also
"We will judge on the evidence, but I am not sure that Julian will return to his level of three years ago. When we see how he raced on the Tour last year, he accepted having become a second-rate rider, and that's not pejorative because there are only around fifteen of the big guys. He went down to the second curtain and his results are also there to prove it."
I tend to agree with Guimard's assessment, but I have nothing but respect for Remco for taking on the challenge. Nobody has ever won anything without first putting themselves out there.
Remco can match them possibly in a single stage but over a number of stages, I don't know. But this year it will be crystal clear especially when he is going against them in a number of races. Julian i think he is past his prime but he already had class. So he can still return, This year it should be clear but if he crashes again he has lost his mojo
I think the assessment is correct in that Remco is one of the best (if not the best) one day racers who's trying to add the climbing endurance of the best like Jonas and tadej, but that takes time...I love Remco and I think he can do it eventually but as far as GTs go, I do think he's just a notch below the other 2...hope to see them all in future tearing it up on an equal ability!
I Agree will all you said but he has still not gone head to head with the two ion peak form which will happen this year and that will give a realistic look at where he is w.r.t the other two.
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- And he probably wasn’t even at the limit ;-) Have to wonder how much Mads could catch up if he’d tune his physique to be as sharp as MVDPs’Mistermaumau31-03-2025
- Respect for giving Van Eetvelt credit there.Mistermaumau31-03-2025
- He’s already a star for me for HAVING complained about it, the recent trend having been, let them then try to take advantage by making them sign NDAs ;-)Mistermaumau31-03-2025
- Agreed, but if it was a radio thing then all the riders should have the same story and it would be easy to call anyone out. Kind of surprised this isn’t cleared up half officially afterwards, just like the Alaphilippe divorce, seems like once something spreads on the net it kind of gets accepted that everyone wants to have their own truth so no-one bothers to contest anything that’s verifiable anymore, we all just move on.Mistermaumau31-03-2025
- maybe. what makes that a LITTLE fishy is that they suddenly hit the gas and started hammering it. even mathieu, who i’ve never heard complain about ANYTHING (other than teenage girls waking him up and being spit on by belgians) was pretty hacked off about the race tactics after the split. i think he was upset for what his teammates had to do, not for the fact he ended up isolated as a result.OCexile31-03-2025
- It seems that in E3 it wasn’t legit to criticise teams that « took advantage » because there was no radio communication about the incident so they couldn’t know to slow down. Only one source so far but should be quite easy to verify.Mistermaumau31-03-2025
- mads SMOKED it at ghent! love that guy. he’s just the best interview ever, always smart and hilarious and with a biting intolerance for stupidity. happy for him. just as a secondary thought, consider that mvdp beat THAT version of mads by a full minute at E3 two days ago. the gap between pog/mvdp and even tho other GREAT riders like mads is kinda staggering to comprehend. this is a time in cycling history that’s certainly worth paying attention to while it lasts.OCexile31-03-2025
- i watched the race. jasper and roodhooft have a legit anger about this. alpecin burned everyone to pull it back. they did the SAME THING after the split in E3, burning all their guys and thus leaving mathieu to fend for himself (which worked out ok because van der poel is van der poel, but still…). yeah, christopher and jasper should be a little pissed this time.OCexile30-03-2025
- Mads, Ganna, MvdP, Pogi were all in MSR, and will all be in both RVV and PR, the problem here is Remco because he doesn't race anything. This year because of injuries, before that, no idea why notvappaxbipmv30-03-2025
- Will it take oil money to get Mads, Remco, Tadej, Ganna and MVDP to line up for the same classic or monument or will Lady Luck help us with this one.Mistermaumau30-03-2025