Remco Evenepoel's father not surprised by his son's Olympic double after a family dinner: "I noticed there might still be something more in him"

How does it feel when your child suddenly becomes the best Belgian Olympic athlete in a hundred years? Remco Evenepoel's parents witnessed the history written by their son on Saturday, when he completed the Olympic Games cycling double by adding the road race gold to his time trial victory from last weekend.

Remco's father Patrick Evenepoel was on the course in Paris to cheer on his child. With the time trial gold in the bag, he didn't dare to dream of another victory for his son anymore. "When Remco won that gold last week, we already thought it was incredible," he explains at Het Nieuwsblad. "But at the beginning of the week I already noticed that there might still be something in him. Remco was home for two and a half days after that time trial. On Monday we went out for dinner with the family. Honestly, we didn’t talk about the race at all."

Not that words are sometimes needed to sense certain things: "But he was so relaxed. You could tell from everything that the Tour and that first gold had done him so much good. And in the meantime he let slip that he was happy to be able to do this with us, but that from Tuesday he would focus on the Games again. And I know him: when he says that, he doesn't go for it one hundred but two hundred percent."

Despite the long list of Belgian cycling legends, Remco is the first to score the Olympic double - something even Eddy Merckx could only dream of. "It really couldn’t have gone better," his father sounds still surprised. "You definitely want to write that down: Remco is the finisher on duty, but without Tiesj, Jasper and Wout that would never have happened. They are also Olympic champions for us."