Remco Evenepoel plotting to 'gain back quite some time' in Tour de France stage five time trial

Double Olympic champion sits 58 seconds off race lead

Remco Evenepoel
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Remco Evenepoel remained upbeat and positive when he spoke to the media outside the Soudal Quick-Step team bus in Rouen despite losing three more seconds to his rivals at the Tour de France on stage four.

The Belgian has a chance to make up immediately for the time loss on Wednesday’s individual time trial in Caen on a course that seems tailor made to the world champion’s attributes. He is currently ninth on GC, 58 seconds down on Mathieu van der Poel, but that time loss could be clawed back on stage five.

"There’s a small climb at the start, but nothing crazy, so it should be something that really suits me and I’m really motivated to do very well and to gain quite some time back tomorrow," Evenepoel said.

"I saw that my coach put a video in a Whatsapp group so I’m going to watch that on the way to the hotel now. Tomorrow morning I’ll then do a nice recon. I think it seems to be pretty straightforward, not technical at all," he said.

"It was a good day," Evenepoel said. "Maybe the attack with two kilometres to go was unnecessary but I just wanted to see whether the others would react or not. It seemed they didn’t give me any space which is normal in a final like that. I gave it a try, maybe it was unnecessary, but overall I’m very happy with the feeling, even though I was really on the limit in the last 500 metres."

"I just didn’t have the legs anymore to sprint so another three seconds is not the worst," he added. "That would have been 30 or 40 seconds behind Tadej. I’m just happy with the feeling, and happy with the legs. I missed a little bit of that explosiveness to sprint and react to the attack of Tadej and Jonas, or Tadej especially. Overall I’m very happy. I think we saw a beautiful finale so it’s up to tomorrow now."

"Onto tomorrow," Vingegaard told reporters. "I'll just try to do as good a time trial as possible, and then we'll see. It's only eight seconds, everything can happen. It's also that Van der Poel, or Pogačar, or somebody else is doing a good time trial, and you never know."

Thank you for reading 20 articles this month* Join now for unlimited access

Enjoy your first month for just £1 / $1 / €1

*Read 5 free articles per month without a subscription

Join now for unlimited access

Try first month for just £1 / $1 / €1

Tom Thewlis
News and Features Writer

After previously working in higher education, Tom joined Cycling Weekly in 2022 and hasn't looked back. He's been covering professional cycling ever since; reporting on the ground from some of the sport's biggest races and events, including the Tour de France, Paris-Roubaix and the World Championships. His earliest memory of a bike race is watching the Tour on holiday in the early 2000's in the south of France - he even made it on to the podium in Pau afterwards. His favourite place that cycling has taken him is Montréal in Canada.

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.