"Remco should know me as a person" - Tim Declercq responds to Evenepoel's apology and denies deliberately slowing Soudal - Quick-Step team time-trial
Cycling
Following the team time-trial on stage 3 of Paris-Nice 2024 on Tuesday, Remco Evenepoel blasted his former teammate Tim Declercq for allegedly slowing the Soudal - Quick-Step. Although he has since apologised for his outburst, Declercq believes Evenepoel should have known him better than to suggest such a idea in the first place.
"He stayed ahead of us in a technical corner and didn't move out of the way. A thank you to him. That was really nasty. Tim may have been an ex-teammate, but you don't do something like that. Did he do it on purpose? I hope not, but it is possible," Evenepoel lamented to Sporza post-stage 3, later changing his tone to say "I didn't mean to blame Tim Declercq, it was just an unfortunate event in the race."
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“It was unintentional but it can happen, but I don't see what I could do about it,” Declercq, now at Lidl-Trek, has since responded about the situation, in quotes collected by HLN. “In principle, they should have said to me: we are here. They couldn't say anything into the earpiece from the car because then the first men would hear that too and that is very confusing. I would have stepped aside, because this is the last thing I would do. Remco should know me as a person, that I would never do something like that on purpose. 'It's possible,' I think it's a bit of a shame that he says that."
“At the top of the climb they said: they are 500 meters behind you. I thought: yes, 500 meters. I looked behind me before that bend and only saw a motorcycle, no riders yet," he concludes. "But they came at such a high speed, 20-30 km/h faster than me... On a straight stretch, you can see far behind you and you pull over. But not on that part. I also find it annoying if you bother someone. I would never want to deliberately hinder anyone, it's an unfortunate set of circumstances. He has already apologized personally and then it is good for me too.”
Kieran WoodDeputy Editor-in-Chief
Kieran Wood is a sports journalist based in Wales and has been active in journalism since 2022. He regularly contributes to DartsNews.com and CyclingUpToDate.com, where he covers professional cycling and darts. In cycling, his work includes liveblogs from major races, including the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, and La Vuelta a España, alongside race reports and analysis. He has also conducted interviews with professional riders.
His reporting spans the full racing calendar, from one-day classics to stage races, with a focus on accurate, real-time coverage and clear contextual analysis. For statistics, results, and historical context, he regularly uses resources such as ProCyclingStats. To support reporting on rider activity and training context where relevant, he also references Strava.
In his work, Kieran places strong emphasis on careful sourcing, editorial accuracy, and updating articles as new, verified information becomes available.
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- That is a very lazy way of putting it but so far on this website it seems like everyone is happy to look at everything lazily, even things that annoy them intensely. All they want to do is state their feeling and position but ask most to analyse a problem or come up with solutions or improvements and you’re stunned by silence. Nobody even really knows how this all happens. It’s very simple and quick to just say the UCI did it but I bet you they didn’t, I bet you not more than 2 people were involved, more likely just 1. The UCI may be ultimately responsible but it is not their decision, this is about hierarchy, power and delegation. The fact that protest is possible also means it isn’t over and that MORE people could get involved for a thorough review which could throw up anything. It is highly likely it was a sole commissar who decided and has that power in a first round. Therein might lie the problem the UCI has to consider, is it acceptable to give so much authority to one single person when it is quite possible for them to have a natural bias or be too easily susceptible to imposed bias. Who is to say an individual in this position isn’t susceptible to collaboration with outside players with interests in the results, nations, families, teams, betting companies, etc. On the one hand we have sports where these problems have been worked on way more to reduce such problems, on the other hand we have sports with far stricter and more draconian rules not even concerning safety or obstruction that nobody really questions like false starts or stepping out of lane or zones in athletics. If cycling hastowork on itself, it would be good if protagonists (all kinds) would start doing a little more than just moaning over outcomes.Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
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Rafionain-Glas08-11-2026 - There really was nothing in it. Schreiber was so much faster, and Brand was fighting to stay in the wheel in the sprint. Schreiber did move a bit, but to say she closed the door doesn't make sense because Brand couldn't enter it anyway, abd she wasn't impeded.Rafionain-Glas08-11-2026
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Front24208-11-2026
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Nice to see Remco & Declercq directly solving the problem. I think fans need to realize more that cyclists have a lot of emotions after a race, defintely if you had to ride in the one moment it rained with a disappointing result partly due to that.
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