Over the recent winter off-season, few riders had more speculation surrounding them as Soudal - Quick-Step leader, Remco Evenepoel. Contrary to the rumours however, his father, Patrick has now insisted that the Belgian never once wanted to leave.
Patrick Evenepoel himself was in the spotlight at the end of 2023 as he and Soudal - Quick-Step boss Patrick Lefevere shared a bout of verbal sparring via the press. “Things were said on both sides at the time. As Remco indicated at the World Championship in Glasgow: 'Patrick and Patrick (Lefevere and Evenepoel sr, ed.) would be better off keeping quiet.' He was absolutely right about that at the time," admits the former Vuelta a Espana winner's father.
The talk of the potential merger between Soudal - Quick-Step and Jumbo-Visma did cause unrest though, Evenepoel senior admits. “The week before it came out, we received a phone call from Zdenek Bakala: 'This is about to happen. The people from Jumbo-Visma will visit you,'" he recalls. "But do you know what Remco started the conversation with? Literally: 'I am being dropped here into a situation that I did not want. The whole story doesn't interest me.'”
"Because of that whole situation, Remco really had a hard time mentally this winter. There his mother really had to take care of him, in a way that only Agna can. Her role is super important, more important than mine. What Remco doesn't say to me, he says to her,” Patrick Evenepoel concludes. “People need to realize how the whole story works. The idea that Remco wanted to leave without looking back is completely wrong. Twist it as you like: in the merger story, sixty people would have been on the street, on one side or the other. Remco didn't want that. From bus driver James to the people at the station, that would have been drama, wouldn't it."
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