Remco Evenepoel says 'everyone will ride for Wout van Aert' at World Championships in Flanders
The 21-year-old looks to be close to top fitness yet again after battling back from injury
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Remco Evenepoel is fully behind the tactics of going all in for Wout van Aert at the upcoming road World Championships in Flanders, Belgium.
Evenepoel will be riding his second World Championships after competing in the Yorkshire 2019 time trial and road race, however, he missed Imola 2020 due to his injuries sustained at Il Lombardia where he fractured his pelvis.
Now the 21-year-old Deceuninck - Quick-Step star returns to the Worlds on home roads, but he comes to the road race in a support role once again.
Evenepoel spent the entirety of the race in 2019 looking after Philippe Gilbert (Lotto-Soudal), this time he will be supporting Van Aert (Jumbo-Visma).
Speaking to Het Nieuwsblad, Evenepoel said: "It's very clear that Wout is leading the way, and everything is done in function of him. But you never know with certain race situations, for example, if he has a bad day or gets into a crash. So many things can happen. But when the situation arises, everyone rides for Wout,"
Evenepoel has shown he is back to top form yet again after a superb showing at the Belgian national championships, and a defence of his Belgium Tour title started off a winning spree with the Tour of Denmark, Druivenkoers-Overijse and Brussels Classic all going his way.
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But, that form may have suffered a setback as he became ill at the recent Benelux Tour, forcing him to abandon on stage five of the race. He sees his form as still being good, though.
"It was a struggle to get the last spot, but I'm happy to be back in top shape just in time. I think I deserve my spot, but we know what we're going for."
The young Belgian is ready to switch tactics if Van Aert is in difficulty though as he has a great chance of winning himself.
"There can always be a situation that the plan can't be completed, but we're all professional enough to work out plan B and - hopefully it won't come to that - plan C as well."
The rest of the team is made up of Tiesj Benoot, Yves Lampaert, Victor Campenaerts, Jasper Stuyven, Tim Declerq and Dylan Teuns and the road race takes place on Sunday, September 26.
Tim Bonville-Ginn is a freelance writer who has worked with Cycling Weekly since 2020 and has also written for many of the biggest publications in cycling media including Cyclingnews, Rouleur, Cyclist and Velo.