“We’ve taken another big step forward” – Remco Evenepoel sends 2027 warning shot with emphatic Chrono des Nations triumph
Cycling
Remco Evenepoel used his final race of the season to test his time trial equipment for 2027 and finished it having caught the man who came second. His first elite Chrono des Nations victory brought a winning margin of more than two minutes, with further wind-tunnel work already scheduled before his winter holiday.
“It looked pretty good. Everything felt great,” Evenepoel said of the equipment test in his post-race flash interview. “We’ve taken another big step forward for next year, and it looks very promising.”
The world champion covered the 45.43km course around Les Herbiers in 49:53.68, averaging approximately 54.6km/h. Jay Vine finished 2:11 behind, despite starting two minutes ahead of the Belgian, while three-time winner Stefan Küng completed the podium at 2:27.8.
A 14th victory on his final race day
Evenepoel had established a 27-second advantage over Küng inside the opening 10.5km. Through the middle of the course, he extended that gap to 1:47 at the 34km checkpoint, where Vine was already 1:55 down. Shortly afterwards, the Australian was caught and passed.
“This was my last chance to take a victory, so I started with plenty of motivation on this wonderful course,” Evenepoel said after securing his 14th win of the season.
Vine recovered enough ground on Küng over the closing kilometres to take second for the third successive year. Evenepoel had won the junior event in 2018, but his previous elite appearances had ended with fifth in 2021 and second behind Josh Tarling in 2023.
“I’m happy to have finally won here,” he said. “It’s a really beautiful course. I know these roads by heart, and it certainly wouldn’t look out of place in the Tour de France.”
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More testing before the holidays
Evenepoel had already raced his latest Specialized time trial bike to a fourth consecutive world title in Montreal. The standalone event in Les Herbiers offered another competitive outing on the equipment before preparations moved into the winter.
His racing season is complete, but the holiday will have to wait until after team days with Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe and a week in the United States for wind-tunnel testing with Specialized.
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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- Just looked again at the photo. Yeah I stand by that. If MS had fallen over in Brands direction I don’t even think she would have hit her. You must be a UCI race commissioner. I’ll be sure to check my sock height should I ever see you on a ride. Looks like everyone else on here sees what I see.mij08-11-2026
- I said looking at the photo it doesn’t appear she deviated. Chill out, not stating my word is the final judgement. Just commenting that based on the photo I don’t see it. And BTW the Dutch coach even said she didn’t impede her.mij08-11-2026
- Blah Blah Blah !frieders308-11-2026
- MS said she was changing gears so that caused her slight deviation. Nothing was intentional.frieders308-11-2026
- How can you use a photo post incident to judge the incident itself (which is not hard to find if you’re prepared to invest the same amount of time in searching as writing that comment? It’s harsh but technically right even though this or worse is not always sanctioned in every race. The two things that went against MS (who unfortunately for her would still have won without making her mistake) are that it was not a bunch sprint where there could have been an overlooked incident or mitigating circumstances explaining a deviation. Everything was focused on just those 2, Schreiber was riding beautifully balanced which made her sudden deviation look unnatural stroke as if it could have been in some part intentional whilst she was slowly drifting ever closer towards the barrier to a point that would have reached obstruction level. In her defence, it might have been the realisation she was heading towards that that made her react suddenly and caused the deviation involuntarily. In any case, congratulations to her for the ride of her life, in people’s minds she will be credited for it.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- Good boy Obviously doesn’t need that much help dealing with pressure, as some have suggested. Wiser (and humbler) than many far further along their careers. About offering him the moon, recently someone came up with an explanation of the downfall of a football great (either referring to Maradona or Portuguese Ronaldo) saying it was kind of normal after coming back from the moon, except that others, including some who actually did go to the moon like Armstrong (Neil in case anyone is too switched off to realise) didn’t go through any of the same motions after coming back. A lot of how you deal with situations has less to do with the situation than with your character.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- I think that they're not really used to dealing with this type of incident in a cyclocross race, and the situation has been magnified because it was a race for a championship title. It's very unfortunate that the race had to be decided in this way.
santiagobenites07-11-2026 - Seriously why do they keep doing stupid things like this. Its one thing to relegate when the placings are minor, when the action is blatant. But when it is ambiguous, why dont they at least take advice from some higher up to avoid embarrassing themselves. This is similar to the Halland goal when his teammate was clearly offside and interfered in play and VAR gave them the goal. if you dont have evidence you cannot convict. Even for doping they have these rulesabstractengineer07-11-2026
- So all those who went to watch, including all from abroad, waled there, spent nothing? Most places hosting events of the sort manage to make it worthwhile. If it was so obviously fruitless, don’t you think by now they’d have run out of hosting candidates? Why do you think the Tour can command such high prices for departure and arrival locations? If it didn’t bring anything locally they’d have to pay to get authorisation to use cities.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- What a travesty ! That little deviation did nothing to impede Brand !frieders307-11-2026
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