On the occasion of the Flemish podcast The Rode Lantaarn, Patrick Lefévère, the boss of the Souda-Quickstep team explained why he would have favored the fact that Remco Evenepoel runs the Giro this year before the Tour de France, like by Tadej Pogacar. In doing so, he delivered between the lines his analysis of the Belgian champion’s repeated air gaps in the Grand Tours. Explanation.
Remco Evenepoel has decided to aim for victory in the Tour de France this season, his big goal now at this stage of his career. But initially, he intended to compete in the Tour of Italy first. On the one hand to try to resolve the frustration of last year, he who had to withdraw due to a positive test for covid while he dominated the race, on the other hand to achieve the good result in a Grand Tour which would allow him to approach the July deadline with less pressure.
Cycling: Roglic talks about Pogacar’s Giro-Tour double… https://t.co/2zbqtgDAum pic.twitter.com/bu8Qo6W48J
— le10sport (@le10sport) February 8, 2024
“Playing for the Giro podium would have taken a lot of pressure off him”
On the occasion of the Flemish podcast The Red Lantern, Patrick Lefévèrethe boss of the Soudal-Quickstepconfirmed that this was the original plan of Remco Evenepoel and that he was in favor of it. Yeast notably affirmed, in comments reported by globalcyclingnetwork.com : « His first idea was to do the Giro and the Tour, like Tadej Pogacar. Our coach put this idea out of his head and I remained quietly silent. In a Grand Tour, the riders are very well treated and followed, everyone knows that. It’s of course very demanding but playing for the final podium at the Giro would have taken a lot of pressure off him. Now he will have more pressure. But the coaches made the decision and I didn’t object. (…) In the past, our general runners were a little left to their own devices. Now we have a phenomenon that everyone expects to win the Tour ».
Lefévère seems to make the link with his sudden failures in the mountains
Through the words of Yeast, we understand that the “pressure” dimension occupies a large part of his thinking, visibly as much if not more than the freshness aspect. Between the lines, we understand that the boss of the Soudal-Quickstep tends to interpret the air gaps of his champion in high mountains, as during the last Tour of Spain, where he inexplicably went completely through during the big Pyrenean stage while his condition was top, as being the consequence of great stress faced with the need to win the Grand Tours.
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