That must have been the lowest moment of Remco Evenepoel’s career. The time trial world champion, who would have ordinarily been in his rainbow bands had he not been in the white jersey of the best young rider, being overtaken in the closing metres of the race, not by his minute man, but by his two minute man, and not just passed by another competitor, but left chasing the shadow of one of the two riders he’s meant to be trying to better in this Tour de France.
It was a public ignominy that no one could have predicted, and one that will be as psychologically traumatic as the three serious injuries he’s sustained and overcame in his six-and-a-half year career so far. For all the highs – and there have been many: three world titles, two Olympic golds, a Vuelta a España title, two Monuments, and the list goes on – it’s the lows that hit the deepest. And this was a low. A very low low.
Tadej Pogačar – obviously, who else? – won the stage 13 mountain time trial to Peyragudes, and Jonas Vingegaard was 36 seconds adrift. Evenepoel watched Vingegaard cross the line and he started ahead of him. On a day when Evenepoel, winner of the pan-flat stage five time trial, was perhaps expecting to strengthen his hold on third place and maybe even exert pressure on Vingegaard in second, he finished as the 12th best time trialist. Twelfth. Behind the likes of Florian Lipowitz, Oscar Onley, Kévin Vauquelin and Felix Gall, riders who in spite of their talents would never expect to beat the Belgian in a race against the clock.
“It was bad. I was really bad,” Evenepoel said. And again, for good measure. “It was just a bad performance from myself. A really bad performance.”
The 645m of climbing from the bottom of Loudenvielle to the Altiport 007 – yes, it is really named after James Bond – naturally swung the race towards Pogačar and Vingegaard, but still Evenepoel should have been in the picture. “I think it was obvious that with a normal feeling I should end up in the top three on a day like this,” he said.
“I have no idea [what happened]. I hope there will not be an explanation. My start was pretty good, but after five minutes of the climb I was feeling pretty bad and I just could not keep pushing the power that I had to. It wasn’t a hunger pan, I did the preparation as I should have, the warm-up as I should have but… yesterday [on the Hautacam] wasn’t good and then today it was worse.”
When Vingegaard passed him, a moment that will surely haunt and terrorise him for an indefinite period, Evenepoel claimed that he felt “nothing”. “I didn't focus on that at all,” he added. “I was already feeling pretty bad before that and with the pace I was riding, it was normal that he was going to pass me. It was just a really bad day, a really bad performance from myself and all the rest… at this moment I really don't care.”
It’s reasonable to ask if all the noise about his future is getting to him. He stated before the race began that he doesn’t “crack under pressure”, but he’s been dropped, dropped again, agitated, vexed and irritated throughout. His TT win in Caen was his only moment of joy. It seems increasingly certain that he will be riding for Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe next season, but in the absence of confirmation, the speculation is proving damaging to his performance.
Ahead of the race’s third and final day in the Pyrenees, a mountain range that has often been tortuous for Evenepoel – he lost nearly 27 minutes when the Vuelta a España finished atop the Col du Tourmalet in 2023 – he remains in the white jersey and on the podium, but is a whopping seven minutes and 24 seconds behind runaway leader Pogačar. Should he look over his shoulder, he’ll see the advancing figures of Lipowitz, Onley, Vauquelin and Primož Roglič all within 1:26 of him.
How will he hold them off? “No idea,” he hit back. Evenepoel's sore, wounded, deeply hurt. This one will take some time to recover from.
