Remco Evenepoel & Tim Merlier set to share Soudal - Quick-Step leadership at 2025 Tour de France
Cycling
It has been rumoured for a while now, but now we have official confirmation. At the 2025 Tour de France, Soudal - Quick-Step will attempt to combine both general classification and sprint stage winning ambitions through both Remco Evenepoel and Tim Merlier.
Soudal - Quick-Step representatives have announced this during the team's presentation for 2025. It marks a big moment for Merlier at Quick-Step as he takes on his first Tour de France in the team's colours and his first for any team since 2021 at Alpecin-Fenix. One of the most successful sprinters in the entire peloton though, Merlier will now get to showcase himself in the biggest race of the year.
What this means for Evenepoel, is that after podiuming on his Tour de France debut in 2024, the Belgian is once again set to prioritise the French Grand Tour in 2025, officially skipping the Giro d'Italia, although that news had been heavily reported over the past weeks and months.
In Evenepoel's absence in Italy, Mikel Landa will lead the general classification charge of the team. Landa is then set to follow his plan of 2024 and act as the double Olympic champion's main mountain support at the Tour de France - a role he played incredibly well last summer.
🇧🇪 Tim Merlier will be part of the Soudal Quick-Step squad for #TDF2025! He'll race Vuelta as well.
— Domestique (@Domestique___) January 9, 2025
🇧🇪 Remco Evenepoel and 🇪🇸 Mikel Landa (Giro + Tour) will race Tour de France too. No Giro for Evenepoel. pic.twitter.com/cwBVv9jthw
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- This guy is making a very stupid decision. His agent should have brought him superior offers. He is going to play 2nd fiddle to Remco and then wonder why he isn't at the TDF or missing all GTs in a season.abstractengineer10-01-2025
- Hirschi and Alaphilippe on Cancellara's team, honestly sounds like a great choice if they manage to play the game the way Van der Poel did, a few years ago. They know where they need to be at the end of next year, in terms of points, so now it's just a question of being there. I'm not sure Alaphilippe will play the role he dreams of, and his jerky movements on the bike continue to annoy me, but I truly wish him and the team the best of luck in reaching their goal. It makes for better racing when teams like Tudor (he still refers to it as a "project," love that) are fighting to get into the World Tour.RidesHills09-01-2025
- Nice to see him with a sense of humor about the wins. That's actually a really good sign of how he's feeling, most of the time.RidesHills09-01-2025
- He’s good at messing up his WCs ;-)Mistermaumau09-01-2025
- so, tom could dedicate himself to CX all year, every year and probably never beat mathieu in a cyclocross world championship, barring a crash or injury or whatever. does pidcock have that kind of advantage over van der poel in XCO, or is that a gap mvdp can close even at this latter stage of mathieu’s career?OCexile09-01-2025
- Yes, I also think teams should start re-evaluating their TdF commitments according to rider goals. As long as a rider doesn’t have any realistic chance of sone form of glory, don’t force them just to end up with a forgettable result, give someone else on the team the experience and chance to prove themselves and let your better rider focus on goals they CAN aim for. You really get the feeling some riders are being forced to pretend they can achieve something when they know they haven’t got a hope.Mistermaumau09-01-2025
- It’s very difficult to say now since he’s hardly ever raced over the last 5-6 years. Had he continued when he was good at it he’d most definitely have won it at some point, the type of course playing a decisive role. But business dictated he should focus more on road racing. Much as he tries, you can’t be everywhere at once and win it all and there are only so many years to a career.Mistermaumau09-01-2025
- I hope for the sake of others she doesn’t become an expert ;-) As OCexile has pointed out she’s capable enough of winning already. The others won’t be as tolerant of her as the men are of Pog if she starts sweeping everything up.Mistermaumau09-01-2025
- i’m ashamed to admit that i really don’t know enough about mtb and xco to know mathieu’s chances of winning world’s if he dedicates his season to that discipline once the spring classics are over. anyone want to take a moment to enlighten me i’d appreciate your take on it.OCexile09-01-2025
- So he goes to FDJ lol.Suipedali09-01-2025