"You're talking about three or five minutes" - Remco Evenepoel on what he has to improve to match Pogacar

Remco Evenepoel is on peak form and has proved that quite convincingly by winning both World and European time trial titles in the past two weeks. He would've made history by winning also both road world titles, adding to the current two Olympic titles, if it weren't for Tadej Pogacar who's been dominating over the past few big races. The Belgian wonders what he will have to improve on in order to close the gap on the Slovenian.

“I'll have to do even better, but luckily I'm changing teams, so it's their problem," Evenepoel joked in the mixed zone this Sunday. I think the final of this European Championship will be exciting for my new team and trainer. They can analyze it and decide what kind of training we need to do.”

Evenepoel didn't suffer mechanical issues this Sunday, but couldn't respond to Tadej Pogacar's nuclear attack on Saint Romain de Lerps. Initially he was able to follow, but the consistently high pace of the reigning World Champion up the 7-kilometer climb proved to be too much for Evenepoel, who then didn't find a group that would perfectly collaborate, and couldn't manage to close the gap again. The key part is being able to follow Pogacar.

"I don't think it's about a one-minute effort, because we're already going hard in the phase before that. You're talking about three or five minutes, and I'll have to work on that in the winter," he admits. "I need to get accustomed to it and improve at it. We did work on it in the summer, but there simply wasn't enough time to improve significantly."

Evenepoel has most of what he needs to be at the level of Pogacar in these sorts of races, except for the climbing level, which no-one in the peloton seemingly has. The Soudal - Quick-Step rider wants to put more emphasis on his sort efforts so as to be able to better match the attacks of his rival. "If you're a good time trialist, you can also pedal at a higher power output for a certain period of time before returning to a more normal pace. Climbing is also about watts per kilo, but that's always easier said than done".

After the worlds and europeans, he will also face Pogacar at Il Lombardia but it's difficult to imagine a different scenario. Already last year the outcome of the race was a solo victory for Pogacar, with a large margin over Evenepoel, who himself had a large margin over the rest of the competitors.

“I'm going to give it my best shot and then we'll see where I stand next year. Everyone knows I'm motivated to win Lombardia. This year we're riding to Bergamo again, with almost 20 kilometers of valley in the final. The Passo di Ganda, as the final climb, is tough, but not as tough as last year's final climb," he adds, perhaps making it more difficult to make the difference. "It will be slightly less steep, so I have to stay with him as long as possible with the legs I have now. I'm going to make the best of it and I feel ready".