The Belgian professional cyclist Remco Evenepoel has celebrated the greatest success of his career so far with his triumph at the Vuelta.
The overall victory of the 22-year-old in the traditional Tour of Spain also meant the first overall victory in one of the three major national tours in 44 years for the proud cycling nation of Belgium on Sunday.
As expected, Evenepoel didn’t give up the coveted red jersey on the 21st and last stage over only 96.7 km from Las Rozas to the Spanish capital Madrid.
Although the Colombian Juan Sebastian Molano secured the stage win in the sprint ahead of the Dane Mads Pedersen and Pascal Ackermann (Kandel), Evenepoel rolled across the line with the peloton and thus maintained a lead of 2:02 minutes over his local pursuer Enrico Mas.
Tears of joy the day before
Evenepoel had brought the coup into dry cloths two years after a serious fall on the Lombardy tour and a month-long forced break the day before.
When the star of Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl crossed the finish line in the day’s success of Olympic champion Richard Carapaz (Ecuador), tears of joy were already rolling down his cheeks – even in the Vuelta, the front runner is no longer attacked on the last section.
Primoz Roglic dethroned at the Vuelta
Evenepoel, for whom experts had predicted a bright future even before his mishap in 2020, succeeded Slovenian Primoz Roglic as the Vuelta winner.
The 32-year-old had to retire due to injury last Wednesday after three Vuelta successes in a row. In the sprint final of the previous day’s stage on Tuesday, Roglic had a serious fall after the tour specialist had once again had good prospects in the race in second place overall.
In 1978 Johan De Muynck in Italy was responsible for the last success of a Belgian at the Tour, at the Giro d’Italia or the Tour of Spain until Sunday.