"The past few months were the toughest of his life" - Patrick Lefevere delighted to see Remco Evenepoel back with a bang at Brabantse Pijl

Patrick Lefevere might not be the CEO of Soudal - Quick-Step any longer, following his recent retirement, but the Belgian remains an avid viewer of the sport. On Friday, Lefevere watched the man he built his team around - Remco Evenepoel - make a triumphant return to racing at Brabantse Pijl after four months out following a training crash.

“I have to admit, the outcome of the Brabantse Pijl didn’t really surprise me. These days, I can tell what time it is just by looking at Remco’s face," begins Lefevere's post-race assessment in his column for Het Nieuwsblad. "It gave me a flashback to the 2022 Clásica San Sebastián, when Evenepoel won solo, but still had Simon Yates on his wheel on the final climb of Erlaitz. He dropped him just like he did Wout van Aert this week — slowly but surely, like a soft strangling. You don’t even need to realise it’s happening as his rival. But I’ll say it again: I haven’t often seen Wout van Aert look that downcast.”

As mentioned, whilst he is no longer involved with the team, Lefevere remains involved in the sport, with his expertise often called upon by TV channels covering the races. “I was following the race as an analyst for RTL, so I got the chance to pull out one of my favourite expressions from the French cycling vocabulary: Remco est affûté. He’s lean, razor-sharp. You can see it in his face — and even more so in his legs," notes the 70-year-old.

For Evenepoel, this win marks a major positive after a disastrous training crash in December left the Olympic champion at admittedly the lowest point in his career. "If, as Remco himself said, the past few months were the toughest of his life, that’s probably because he trained incredibly hard,” says Lefevere. "His father told us Remco also struggled mentally during his recovery. That’s how he’s built — big emotional highs and lows. He’s a product of his time: more expressive, more open than previous generations. But emotion has always been a part of cycling. Johan Museeuw was a West Flemish man of the 'men don’t cry' school, but behind closed doors, of course he did. Nobody talked about it back then, though.”

“I’m no longer CEO, so I usually keep some distance from Remco. But I’d say my relationship with the family is maybe better than it used to be. I recently had dinner with his mother Agna, and I still exchange the occasional message with Remco over WhatsApp," adds the former team boss. "In one of his recent texts, he said: ‘I feel like I didn’t really have a winter.’ Judging by his performance I’d say: lucky for everyone else he felt that way. Imagine if he hadn’t.”