Remco Evenepoel loses 24 minutes on stage 16 of the Giro d'Italia 2021

The young Belgian drops out of the top 10 in the overall standings going into the second rest day

Remco Evenepoel at the Giro d'Italia 2021
(Image credit: Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)

Remco Evenepoel fell out of the overall contention after losing 24-minutes to race leader Egan Bernal on the 16th stage of the Giro d'Italia 2021.

Evenepoel (Deceuninck - Quick-Step) had another tough day in the saddle in the Giro d'Italia and didn't have much support around him either with his team-mate, João Almeida getting into the breakaway early on.

The young Belgian finished alongside his team-mate, James Knox in 58th place at 24-05 behind the stage winner and overall leader, Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) who had put on a show in the horrible weather conditions.

This time loss meant that Evenepoel dropped out of the top-10 in the general classification to 19th overall at 28-07 from Bernal. Almeida has since jumped up to 10th in the GC after an impressive ride with him sitting at 10-01 down on pink.

>>> Egan Bernal dominates to solo to victory on stage 16 of the Giro d'Italia 2021

Deceuninck - Quick-Step boss, Patrick Lefevere told L'Equipe on May 23: "We have to see if his body has not been too strained. If he loses too much time, we will make him come home, I don't think it would be a service to him if he stayed in the race to suffer. He has already learned enough in two weeks"

It is easy to forget that the 21-year-old is not only making his Grand Tour debut in very difficult conditions, but he is also in his first race since his crash at Il Lombardia nine months ago.

The stage was a tough one from the start with the pace being very high as a few riders in the break did pose a threat to some involved in the top 10 in the GC, including Almeida. This meant that several riders lost contact on the first climb.

EF Education-Nippo took over from Ineos Grenadiers at the front just before the final climb of the stage, the Passo Giau to try and set up their leader Hugh Carthy but it didn't go to plan for the British rider as Bernal went on the attack halfway up the Giau to solo to victory. 

Bernal now leads the Giro d'Italia by 2-24 over Damiano Caruso (Bahrain-Victorious) going into the final rest day of the race.

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Tim Bonville-Ginn

Hi, I'm one of Cycling Weekly's content writers for the web team responsible for writing stories on racing, tech, updating evergreen pages as well as the weekly email newsletter. Proud Yorkshireman from the UK's answer to Flanders, Calderdale, go check out the cobbled climbs!


I started watching cycling back in 2010, before all the hype around London 2012 and Bradley Wiggins at the Tour de France. In fact, it was Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck's battle in the fog up the Tourmalet on stage 17 of the Tour de France.


It took me a few more years to get into the journalism side of things, but I had a good idea I wanted to get into cycling journalism by the end of year nine at school and started doing voluntary work soon after. This got me a chance to go to the London Six Days, Tour de Yorkshire and the Tour of Britain to name a few before eventually joining Eurosport's online team while I was at uni, where I studied journalism. Eurosport gave me the opportunity to work at the world championships in Harrogate back in the awful weather.


After various bar jobs, I managed to get my way into Cycling Weekly in late February of 2020 where I mostly write about racing and everything around that as it's what I specialise in but don't be surprised to see my name on other news stories.


When not writing stories for the site, I don't really switch off my cycling side as I watch every race that is televised as well as being a rider myself and a regular user of the game Pro Cycling Manager. Maybe too regular.


My bike is a well used Specialized Tarmac SL4 when out on my local roads back in West Yorkshire as well as in northern Hampshire with the hills and mountains being my preferred terrain.