Remco Evenepoel reveals plans to target Tour de France, Giro d'Italia victories - 'I want to go in that direction'
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Published 12/08/2024 at 22:43 GMT
Remco Evenepoel enjoyed an Olympics to remember as he won gold in the time trial and road race. The Belgian, 24, has now revealed that he wants to add to his Vuelta a Espana title by winning the Tour de France and Giro d'Italia. Evenepoel was third at the Tour de France this season and is set to tweak his training and focus in a bid to improve on that result.
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Remco Evenepoel has outlined how he hopes to "perform better on the high climbs" to achieve his ambitions of winning the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France.
Evenepoel, 24, added to his growing palmarès by winning gold in the time trial and road race at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
His other career highlights include triumphing in the time trial and road race at the Cycling World Championships and winning the Vuelta a Espana in 2022.
On his to-do list in the future is success at the other two Grand Tours.
"I really want to win the Giro and the Tour," the Belgian told Sporza. "Certainly after my third place [this year at the Tour] I now have the feeling that it is definitely on the cards.
"I still have quite a few years to go, but it has become clear to me that I want to go in that direction.”
To help his bid for more Grand Tour glory, Evenepoel is set to cut down on time-trial training and focus more on climbing.
He added: "Because it's clear that you don't win a Grand Tour in a 30-kilometre time trial, but you do on climbs of more than an hour.
"Look, I'm not going to make any drastic changes, okay? But maybe I'll lose a kilo to be able to perform better on the high climbs.
"Certainly now that I have put a sort of end to my time trial record, that is a switch that can be made. Although that absolutely does not mean that I will now skip the major events in time trials. I will definitely be riding the World Championships in Zurich and the European Championships in my own country."
Evenepoel says he has no definite plans for now for 2025 regarding the Grand Tours.
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"The Giro and the Tour? Both are difficult… unless you're [Tadej] Pogacar, but that's still too much for me.
“We're going to wait for the courses, there's no pressure. And first there are a few more races this year, right?"
Still to come this year are the Cycling World Championships in Zurich and European Championships in Flanders, as well as the Tour of Lombardy, the last Monument of the season.
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Evenepoel, who crashed badly at the Tour of Lombardy in 2020 and also fell off at the race last year, said: "I would like to extend my world title in the time trial. And with the course of the road race, it is only logical that I also want to achieve a good result there.
"Finally, I'm going to ride Lombardy. I hope to do well there and not fall like last year, so that I can add that race to my list of achievements.
"That's the only race I have to win to finish a story and put a big point at the end of that book. That's something that lives with me."
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