Remco Evenepoel had to abandon the Tour de France on Saturday. The Soudal Quick-Step rider from Belgium had a difficult run-up to the French stage race but, after the fourteenth stage, he could not name a clear cause for his dip in form.
“It just didn’t work,” Evenepoel said when he spoke to Sporza at the team bus a few hours after his abandonment. “There was nothing there. You can have a bad day, but three in a row is not normal. It was the best option to stop.”
The 25-year-old Evenepoel decided to step off the bike on the infamous Col du Tourmalet. “Actually, it was team leader Klaas Lodewyck who told me that I had to stop,” Evenepoel said. The Belgian had a mixed Tour up to that point.
Evenepoel won one stage, but received a major blow in the time trial on Friday, finishing twelfth. Despite that setback, he retained his third place in the general classification. “Until today, everything looked pretty good, but it has gone from bad to very bad.”
“I have no idea what the cause is. We still need to investigate that. Everyone knows that I had a terrible winter,” Evenepoel continued, who suffered from an injury to his right shoulder after a fall in December 2024. “But that has little impact on the bike. I mainly notice that in daily life. For example, I can’t carry a bag with my right hand.”
What the cause is for the rapid decline, Evenepoel does not know. “It could be anything. Fatigue? Is my body not good this year?” he wondered out loud. “I don’t know. I don’t feel bad off the bike, but it doesn’t work on the bike.”
Evenpoel already suffered from this in the run-up to the Tour. After the Critérium du Dauphiné, he barely sat on his bike. “I haven’t been able to do any training in the run-up to the Tour. I couldn’t stand any intensity.”
The abandonment in the Tour and ignorance about his physical condition weigh heavily on Evenepoel. “It has already been a seriously difficult year,” said the Belgian, while fighting back his tears. “I wanted to be at the start here as well as possible, but in the end everything collapses again. It is yet another disappointment.”