Five days after his end at the Tour de France, the Belgian Remco Evenepoel revealed that he had started the tour.
“I went into the toughest race in the world with a broken rib and a tired body,” wrote the double Olympic champion on Thursday on Instagram. Even Evenepoel admitted: “It wasn’t the best combination, but I didn’t want to give up my goal for which I had worked so hard.”
After his serious training accident in December, the 25-year-old tortured himself in spring to take part in the tour. “When I was finally allowed to train again, everything suddenly went very quickly. It became a constant agitation,” said Evenepoel. The classics in April, the subsequent height training camp, then the tour: “I always felt like I was running after.”
Shortly before the tour of the tour, Evenepoel fell again and broke a rib at the Belgian championships. “Not the worst, but definitely not ideal,” he wrote now. Despite the injury, he won the time trial around Caen in Normandy in front of the Slovenian Tadej Pogacar and took over the white jersey of the best young professional. “But in the second week the price for the effort was shown.”
An incidental infection gave him the rest, on the last Pyrenees stage he fell back and got out. “This day became one of the hardest and most vulnerable moments of my career,” wrote Evenepoel. The German tour of Florian Lipowitz took over the white jersey and third place in the overall ranking.
Even with all disappointment, Evenepoel does not look back on his tour participation. “It takes strength to show that things do not always run according to your ideas; that even if you want something long, your body sometimes has different plans. This moment, as hard as it was, has shown that I am a person. With heights and depths,” he wrote to his followers.