"This year I really took a new step in my career" - Remco Evenepoel as confident as ever entering Giro d'Italia

How high can Remco Evenepoel go during this Giro d'Italia? This is a question that has been standing for several months, and almost on the eve of the Corsa Rosa it's fair to say the preparation has been ideal for the World Champion.

“I am sitting here with a very good feeling. I just won Liège-Bastogne-Liège, so you can hardly start the Giro any better. I won the UAE Tour and also finished second in the Volta a Catalunya," Evenepoel said in a press conference this morning. "This year I really took a new step in my career. If you already have such a track record at such a young age, you can only feel very good if you are at the start here as a favourite.”

Evenepoel had a modest start to the season at the UAE Tour but after a block of intense training showed his best legs at the UAE Tour. There he won the overall classification due to a strong team time-trial and consistent performances in the two summit finishes - alongside surviving the crosswinds. He's a very complete rider who is entering the Giro as a big favourite, not having a clear weak spot which can be taken advantage of. With the race beginning with a time-trial he could very well enter the first road stage with the pink jersey.

Asked where he'd like to take the pink jersey, the World Champion responds: "If I can catch him in the ninth stage, why not? Last year in the Vuelta I had the red jersey on my shoulders from the sixth stage, so we have already shown as a team that we can control a grand tour. Maybe the ninth stage is a perfect ride to take the lead, but we don't necessarily have to do that there. The last week is so terribly hard that you can also take over the red jersey in the twentieth stage. Everything will be decided in the last days.”

Although the time-trials in the opening week could see big differences - not among Evenepoel and Roglic however - it'll be in the mountains that the race will be decided. Three stages top 5000 meters of climbing and two of those go well above the 2000 meters in altitude. There will be a mix of those colossal mountain days, more explosive stages, and an insanely hard final time-trial up Monte Lussari which will certainly see all riders in special bike equipment.

“The Giro will only start from the thirteenth stage to Crans-Montana and the fifteenth stage to Bergamo," Evenepoel believes. "It all has to do with that super tough last week and I'm sure all GC riders think the same way. For me, the time trials on stage 1 and stage 9 will be hugely important in the first part of the Giro, and then we can only look further. Arriving safely in the second week is the first goal. Of course, the fourth, seventh and eighth stages are not easy at all either, but I do not intend to take any action in those stages.”