The Slovenian high-flyer Tadej Pogacar also dominated the cycling year 2025 almost effortlessly. Remco Evenepoel finally wants to break through the dominance of the 27-year-old and UAE Team Emirates. The double Olympic champion, who will be under contract with the German cycling hope Florian Lipowitz for the Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe team, has big goals for the new season.
“I want to be better than him,” the 25-year-old said confidently in an interview with “Sporza” when asked by Tadej Pogacar and answered whether he had the confidence to beat the superstar in the upcoming Tour de France: “Yes, but only if everything continues to go well and I have a very good winter, good training camps and work on the adjustments that I have to fix in the races in the spring.”
His new employer gives him hopes of a good performance on the Tour of France. “With the environment that I have here, the support and the teammates that are here, all the scientific knowledge that flows in here. That makes me believe that there is still a lot of room for progress,” continued the Belgian double Olympic champion.
Evenepoel and Lipowitz in one team “will only have advantages”
The last time Evenepoel won a road race when the Slovenian also competed was in 2023 – at Liège-Bastogne-Liège. Pogacar had to retire after a fall. Evenepoel also beat his opponent at the 2022 World Cycling Championships and grabbed the solo title. The new team should work again next year.
With the signing of Evenepoel, who was bought out of Soudal-Quick Step’s contract for an estimated two million euros, Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe underlined its great ambitions. In the future, the Belgian will form a prominent dual leadership team with tour third-place finisher Florian Lipowitz, which, however, also offers potential for conflict.
But Evenepoel isn’t worried about that. “If we develop a plan, then it will only have advantages. Florian and I are both very ambitious, but we are two different drivers,” said Evenepoel: “I am more explosive, Florian has to get up to speed like a diesel. We are opposites, and together it can only end well.”
Instead of worrying about the competition within the team, “we have to complement each other,” said Evenepoel: “We must not hinder each other in order to achieve the goal of this team: to win the Tour one day.”