Twenty minutes after Remco Evenepoel had scored one of his biggest ever victories, a mountain-top stage victory at the Tour de France, his Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe teammate Maxim Van Gils was in a state of part-disbelief and part-joy.
“We won! We won with Remco!” Van Gils screamed into the face of Tim van Dijke who smiled – he of course knew the good news – and the pair shared a warm embrace.
Van Gils spent most of May and a good portion of June with Evenepoel in Sierra Nevada, training at altitude in southern Spain to prepare for the Tour. For much of that period, Van Gils had concerns.
“At altitude, we were not flying, I have to say,” Van Gils said. “We were in shape, Remco is always a special guy, but we were not, let’s say, extremely good.
“But then one week after the Dauphiné [Tour of Auvergne-Rhone Alpes – ed] we did the recon [of the final Tour stages] together and Paul Magnier and I were completely f**ked. And he was still fresh, so there we saw he was in good shape.
“It was a completely different Remco that had arrived. He was really hungry, you saw that fire in his eyes, and also now he is super focused. Sometimes we eat a little bit of Nutella, but he’s not touching Nutella at the moment.”
Those worries Van Gils had were allayed on stage 15 to the Plateau de Solaison, when Evenepoel not only kept with Tadej Pogačar and his UAE Team Emirates-XRG teammate Isaac Del Toro, but won a finish line sprint to beat the pair. After Jonas Vingegaard’s abandonment, Evenepoel now sits second overall. He is exactly five minutes behind the runaway leader Pogačar.
Victory was proof, Evenepoel said, that favouring a big block at altitude over racing was the right call. Even if Van Gils took a while to see the fruits of it.
“Of course, this needs good preparation, and I think what I’ve shown today is the reason why I went out of competition for more than two months.
“I decided to do a lot of long climbing training sessions to lose weight because with the shape and body condition that I have now, this is the only way that I can do this . It’s not coming from nature. It makes me very happy and satisfied for sure.”
The three-time world champion and two-time Olympic gold medallist knew what it all meant. “This, a mountain stage of the Tour de France, is really high up in my list [of greatest wins],” he beamed. “It’s one of my best rides ever.
“Of course [World and Olympic] championships are something else, but in terms of stage racing this is one of the most beautiful ever.”
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Evenepoel has beaten Pogačar in time trials before, but he had never got the better of him in the mountains – until now. “Tadej is just outstanding. Whenever he’s in for the win, he grabs it. So if there’s an opportunity to beat him, you need to grab it and try to do everything you can to do it,” Evenepoel said.
“For me it’s something new that I’ve just experienced to follow the best climbers in the world on such a hard climb – a steep one as well – and to still be able to win.
“I knew that together with yesterday this was one of the days to really be on a good level, where I knew that a lot of the GC could be made or could be set.”
The bookmakers will be predicting that Evenepoel doubles up on Tuesday, when he starts the 26.1km time trial by the shores of Lake Geneva as favourite. It gives him a golden chance to cement his second place in the standings.
“Going with this feeling into the rest day and into the TT day, it’s pretty amazing,” he said. “I’m just very happy with where I am and with how the Tour is developing so far.”
Has the result of stage 15 settled the battle for supremacy within the Red Bull team? Is Evenepoel, who has a 1:48 advantage in the GC over his teammate Florian Lipowitz, now the rider the German team will ride for?
“For the moment it doesn’t change anything because there can always be days that I also lose time,” Evenepoel said, echoing comments he’s made throughout the race.
“Every day is a new opportunity and you have to grab it with both hands. Today I really had the legs to go for the win so I just made a good decision to try and follow.
“But I also think Lipo is still in a very good position on the GC, so he needs to fight for his own spot for sure, and I will fight for mine. I think that’s the way that we have to do it now.”
Van Gils agreed. “I think it’s still the same as it was in the beginning,” he said. “I think everyone is making it [the supposed rivalry between the pair] bigger than it is. I can tell you there’s no real tension between them.
“They like each other, and we have a really good atmosphere on the bus. Both of them are making jokes with each other and with us. I think it’s more the media that are hyping it up more than what it is.”
