Remco Evenepoel: My Golds In My Words

This summer, Remco Evenepoel achieved something no man had done before — he won a gold medal in both the time trial and the road race at the same Olympic Games.

What’s more, the 24-year-old Belgian competed just six days after finishing third in his first Tour de France, cycling’s most famous race, a gruelling 21-stage slog covering nearly 3,500km (more than 2,100 miles). There was fatigue in his legs, but gold on his mind.

As he crossed the finish line of last Saturday’s road race, getting off his bike to pose in front of the Eiffel Tower in central Paris, he delivered one of cycling’s most iconic images to go with his second gold medal.

Still no words…

📷 David Gray pic.twitter.com/RnooscunqI

— Remco Evenepoel (@EvenepoelRemco) August 4, 2024

But this was a moment that he’d seen before — and a process of visualisation that started at one of his lowest ebbs, after a terrifying crash at the Italian one-day race Il Lombardia in 2020 where, while descending a hill at high speed, Evenepoel was catapulted off a bridge into a ravine. He fractured his pelvis and bruised a lung — but was fortunate it was not worse.

“When I had my crash, from that moment on I really started with visualisation training,” he tells The Athletic. “Especially to build confidence again in the descents and in cornering after that crash.

He should have been racing for glory at the Belgian National Championships this afternoon, but @EvenepoelRemco has his own time trial – and knowing his amazing determination and willpower – we are confident he will win it.#TheWolfpackNeverGivesUp pic.twitter.com/8l6w2Na9S6

— Soudal Quick-Step Pro Cycling Team (@soudalquickstep) August 20, 2020

“I began to use it for more and more things — so now, actually, I really try to have the image of myself already over the finish line.

“The moment that I thought about the celebration (mentioned above) was the day before, on the massage table — the last moment of 100 per cent relaxation with my soigneur (a non-riding support team member).

“We talked about it — how if I could finish alone, it could be a crazy image, maybe one of the most beautiful pictures I could probably ever have in my career. That’s where it really popped up in my head. Of course, I didn’t say it to too many people — I think only my soigneur knew about it.”

People did not need to hear about it when they could see it.

The Athletic’s My Game In My Words series has previously unpacked the brains of football players, but this is different.

This is Remco Evenepoel — My Golds In My Words.

---

It is April 2024, stage four of the Tour of the Basque Country, and Remco Evenepoel is lying in the woods of northern Spain.

He is injured after losing control on a treacherous descent at more than 80km/h (50mph) and landing hard — his Danish rival Jonas Vingegaard, lying in a drainage culvert up the road, is even worse off — and there are just three months until the Tour de France, and four until the Olympics.

“I broke my collarbone, my scapula (shoulder blade) as well,” says Evenepoel. “So it was a stressful moment: ‘Would I be in shape for the Tour?’ We always thought a top-five finish (at the Tour de France) would be great, but in my head, I really wanted to get on the podium (finishing in the top three).

“It was a bit of a rush to get in shape — especially because I’m a type of person who gains weight easily, not necessarily in fat, but also in muscle, so with the three-week non-active period I gained about two kilos (around 4.5lb). Then I had to restart training — it was really a tough period.

“But in the Tour, everything went pretty well — I wanted to win a stage and finish on the podium. It was job done — honestly, it was unexpected to have a smooth Tour de France like that, especially my first one.”

Sporting a new buzzcut — his mother is his hairdresser — Evenepoel won the time trial in the countryside south of the city of Dijon on stage 7. The victory meant he had won a time trial in all three Grand Tours (the others are in Italy and Spain) — but his main time trial target for the summer would come on July 27 in Paris.

The six days of turnaround was negligible.

“When you come out of a Grand Tour, you don’t really have the acceleration in your legs, but you can push a bigger gear,” he explains. “But the accelerations are needed in a TT (time trial) like that.

“Then, the morning of the time trial when I woke up, it was raining pretty hard. I woke up with a feeling of… let’s say more scared than when it’s dry. There are some fast, technical corners — you’re in Paris, so: slippery roads, lots of road furniture.

“I haven’t done many time trials in wet conditions. I think the only one I did before Paris was the (2023) national championships, and I crashed out after three kilometres. So that wasn’t the best memory.” Evenepoel still finished fourth that day.

Cycling is a symphony of man and machine — with riders exacting over the specifications of their bikes. The French rain threw another complication into the Belgian team’s calculations.

“We went down quite a bit on the tyre pressure,” Evenepoel says. “I was riding about 5.5 (bar), which is still quite a lot, but in time trials, we usually have a higher pressure. If you ride tubeless, you can go to 4 or even 3.8 in the wet — but I use Specialized tyres with inner tubes, and didn’t want to lose our low rolling resistance, so just dropped the pressure.”

Because of the deluge, Evenepoel warmed up inside on the static rollers rather than outside on his time-trial bike, while also swapping out his usual black visor for a clear one to aid visibility. With 32.4km (20 miles) to navigate as swiftly as possible, fuelling was also important.

“In Flemish, we call them pistolet,” laughs Evenepoel, reaching for the word to describe his pre-race meal. “They’re little round French baguettes, you also get them here in Belgium. I’ll have three. Two with raspberry jam, always raspberry, then one with chicken — and about half a litre of Fanta (a soft drink).

“Our coach hired an Airbnb about 50 metres from the start gates, so we could lie down there for nearly two hours before the race start — a couch and bed to relax before going.

“But the only thing that didn’t work out well is that I often use slushies before the time trial to keep my core temperature down — but the slushie machine wasn’t working very well, so it was more like a liquid isotonic drink instead of a slushie.”

While Evenepoel dealt with the lack of ice, his main aim when the race started was to avoid sliding out on corners. His ‘engine’ has always been large — but compared to some of his rivals, who have ridden at a high level since a far younger age, his bike-handling abilities are sometimes a disadvantage. A former captain of the Belgium Under-16 football side, he only transitioned from that sport to cycling at 17.

“I tried to put the negative thoughts of the rain out my head, and just focus on the straight parts, where I tried to push as much as possible,” Evenepoel says. “My mistake at the nationals was that I bent my bike too much — and in the end it was a good tactic (in Paris). I didn’t take my corners slowly, but I just never went crazy. I used them as a recovery moment to breathe and put some oxygen in the legs.”

The tactics were more than good.

Evenepoel had the fastest time of any rider in the highly technical middle section of the race — even beating Belgium team-mate Wout van Aert, one of the sport’s outstanding bike handlers, who was favoured to gain time in that part of the course.

In the final few hundred metres, Evenepoel’s margin was comfortable enough that he could afford himself a rare honour in a time trial — being able to celebrate when crossing the line.

“We had our own time checks, after five kilometres and with five kilometres left,” says Evenepoel. “I got the first time check where I had eight seconds of advantage, but I think my team kept it low-key, and told me two seconds. It was something to push me. Then, at the second time check, they told me that (Italian rider Filippo) Ganna lost quite some time. I knew the trickiest parts were gone — and it was pretty straightforward to the finish line.

“When I came closer to the finish line, I could see my time, still in green, and the name of Ganna with the number 1 in front of it. So then I knew: ‘OK, it’s mine.’ On the radio, my team could see television images, so they were screaming: ‘You got it, you got it!’ Then it was an explosion of emotions.”

In the aftermath — it was Belgium’s first medal of any kind at the 2024 Olympics — just one thing went wrong.

“Wout (who finished third) was also on the podium — and there was a certain set of clothing we were meant to wear. But Wout had brought the wrong set — so I had to give my jacket away and find another to put on.”

Look closely at the pictures of Evenepoel receiving his two gold medals — and you can see a subtle difference.

There were seven days between the races — days filled with recovery and preparations for the road race — but also, potentially, another medal chance.

Because of the poor water quality of the River Seine that flows through Paris, the Olympic triathlons’ organisers toyed with removing the swimming section of the events to create a duathlon. Would Evenepoel, who ran a half-marathon in 87 minutes as a 16-year-old, and who would have been the best bike rider in the field by a distance, have had an outside shot at a duathlon medal?

“It would have been special,” he laughs. “I don’t know if it’s allowed, if you’re a professional cyclist. But one day, after I’ve ticked all the boxes in cycling that I’ve done in my head, I will be doing Ironmans (longer-distance triathlons) or triathlons. I think age is less important in Ironman, because it’s not as explosive — and it will stop me gaining weight. I mean, it would have been special to have three medals, but it would not have done me well for the race.”

But on the subject of ticking boxes, here comes the follow-up question: has he now ‘completed’ time-trialling?

“I’ve done everything,” Evenepoel admits. “I became national champion. European. Worlds. Olympic now — and I have a time trial victory in every single Grand Tour. So I think that’s kind of finished.

“At the beginning of my career, I knew I could do something special in time-trialling, but I would never have expected to be at this level, especially after a Grand Tour, being much lighter than I would be for a world championship. Compared to last year, I think it’s about two kilos of difference, of pure muscles.

“It’s pretty crazy to have done it with being pretty lightweight. If you see the podium, it’s crazy — I think Filippo and Wout are both about 75 to 80 kilos, almost 15 kilos more than myself. It’s like I’m cheating on the science.”

But if one gold medal capped Evenepoel’s season, two would make it legendary.

The Olympics’ men’s road race, on August 3, would see 88 riders ride a 273km course. Longer than any typical single stage of a Grand Tour, with smaller teams (Belgium had a maximum of four; smaller, lower-ranked countries had only a solo rider) and no radios to communicate with support staff — this was a different proposition to the sort of road races Evenepoel rides for his trade team, Soudal Quick-Step.

“I won the Olympics in this way, so I kind of like it,” says Evenepoel. “I’m still quite close to my junior years (where this style of racing is more common), so I’m still a bit used to it. You need to read the race situation and feel it as well. If you don’t pay attention, you don’t know where you are — but I like the challenge.

“Looking at the race profile online, I doubted that this would be a good course for me. But I did a recon on the Wednesday before the race, 200 kilometres, and when I felt my legs afterwards I knew it would be tough. That meant I started to believe more and more in my chances, especially with the run-in towards Paris being up and down. With that fatigue in the legs, the explosivity of some guys would be gone. I’m pretty lucky that my explosivity stays on the same level, even with fatigue.

“I told my masseur that night about this, and really focused on the climbs at Montmartre (the hilltop neighbourhood of Paris that the race went up and over three times on a street circuit loop in its final few kilometres). I needed to put in a big attack there, where the race would be completely open for about five to six minutes, with the uphill, the tunnel and then a bit of the city section. So what I did in the race is what I had in my head.”

Generally, and especially in this format, riders have to be reactive. But with Van Aert marking rivals such as the Netherlands’ Mathieu van der Poel, the race unfurled exactly as Evenepoel hoped — and he attacked around Montmartre with 38km remaining. After catching up with a break of three riders, who subsequently reached leader Ben Healy of Ireland, the Belgian’s pace trimmed the group. Soon, it was Evenepoel and Frenchman Valentin Madouas alone at the front.

“Going over Montmartre for a second time with Madouas still on my wheel, I knew: ‘OK, this guy is also on a very good day, it’s not going to be that easy to get rid of him.’ But once we were working together, taking turns on the flat, I looked down at my speed (on his bike computer), and could see that when he took the front, we were slowing down quite a bit — from about 53kph to 46kph. So then I thought maybe his legs were running empty.

“When we got onto the climb again, I paced-up to see how he would respond — and could see in the shadows behind that he was losing my wheel, but not cracking completely. I asked him to take the lead, he said, ‘No’, and then I knew. I went all-in to drop him — and it worked out.”

Now by himself at the front, with the chasers behind disorganised, Evenepoel was on course for another Olympic gold. Only something remarkable could deny him.

The remarkable occurred with just over three kilometres left.

“My (team) car came next to me, and (head coach) Sven (Vanthourenhout) was screaming at me: ‘You have one minute (of an advantage), you have enough time, no worries.’ But then the race motorbike with its timing screen came next to me, and it said 25 seconds. I was like: ‘How is this possible? I’m going all in and I’m losing 35 seconds?’

“I knew the only thing left was a small cobbled section around the Louvre (museum) — but I think I hit a cobble on the side. Kurt Roose, my mechanic, told me later that it was completely destroyed — there was a big hole in the tyre and it exploded completely.

Another view of the forced bike change of Remco Evenepoel because of the puncture at the Olympics road race. #Paris2024

🎥: roelhofmans pic.twitter.com/2IR2URqbzP

— Lukáš Ronald Lukács (@lucasaganronald) August 5, 2024

“So that’s why I was nervous and freaking out, because I thought: ‘I only have half a minute. I need to get my (replacement) bike as quick as possible.’ The place where I got the puncture, we’d just been through a very narrow tunnel, so the (support team’s) car didn’t see me directly, they hadn’t seen me stop. At that moment, it felt like it was taking ages — but when I watched it back, it was actually very quick and smooth. “Not a bad sprint for a 51-year-old,” Roose said afterwards.

“It put some extra spice on the victory. It was hectic, but it was also a very unique image, and will stay in people’s heads for quite a long time. The stress and rush was not really necessary — but it was special.”

There was one unique image left to create — that iconic finish-line celebration, the one visualised with his soigneur during the week.

“My three team-mates did a recon of the final 10 kilometres, but I didn’t,” Evenepoel adds. “But they showed me a picture of the last 100 metres in front of the Eiffel Tower, and I knew: ‘OK, it’s going to be a pretty crazy image.’ Just a crazy setup as well, to have a bike race finish over there.

“It really drove me to really go for it, to really get everything out of the tank, to achieve it and to get that shot. It was really a goal to try and win in a special way and with a special celebration.”

After more than a month of elite riding, and with two gold medals around his neck, Evenepoel needed a break.

On leaving the podium — and wearing the right tracksuit this time — he celebrated at the Belgian Olympic house, dancing to trance music, powered only by the caffeine still in his system from the race. Over the coming days, he appeared on the pitch at Anderlecht, the club in Belgian capital Brussels where he played his youth football, alongside national cycling hero Eddy Merckx. His name was chanted by the crowd.

On Saturday, he was presented with a gold-painted bike by Specialized.

How to celebrate a Double Olympic Golden Medal 😂🥇🥇🔥❤️🇧🇪 pic.twitter.com/CPzGtVCUyj

— Remco Evenepoel (@EvenepoelRemco) August 4, 2024

Evenepoel has won Belgium’s Sportsman of the Year award for two consecutive years — he is surely a shoo-in for three in a row.

“Nobody’s speaking any more about my third place in the Tour de France,” he says. “So you can really see that the Olympics, and especially a double gold medal is just above everything. I was speaking about this with my wife as well. I think the last week that I had at the Olympics, the Saturday-to-Saturday week with the two gold medals, what I achieved in Paris will be the highest moment of my sporting life.”

Might there be another achievement to come in Paris in the future, though?

“One day, if I’m in Paris wearing the Tour de France Yellow Jersey, for sure the city will suit me,” Evenepoel says. “But for my first time racing in Paris? It’s a good start.”

(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Dan Goldfarb)