The World Champion sits second in the standings with one day to go at the 102nd edition.
Remco Evenepoel was everywhere on the penultimate stage of the race! Staying true to his nature and instinct, the Belgian attacked on the only climb of the day – just 500 meters from the top – and continued to push hard on the descent with Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma), the only rider who could follow him, in his wheel. Evenepoel was the only one to pull, and his effort resulted in a 30-second advantage when the duo entered the flat final kilometers.
With the Slovenian refusing to share the work, the two got caught, but not even when the peloton came back, with five kilometers to go, Remco didn’t stop, opening a huge acceleration to take three bonus seconds at the last intermediate sprint. Then, to round it out, he got in the mix with the pure sprinters after a solid lead-out of Mattia Cattaneo on the finishing straight in Molins de Rei, and impressed again by taking fifth place – a result that leaves him in the fight for the overall ahead of the tough Barcelona stage.
“We wanted to attack today, and that’s what we did. I felt good, so why not try something. If Primoz had worked with me, we could have gone for the win, but he refused to do it, so that’s that. It will be difficult to turn around the general classification, but we’ll see what we can do on the Barcelona stage. It’s going to be a hard day, up and down all the time, but we are motivated to do our best again”, a confident Remco said after the stage.
Photo credit: ©David Ramos / Getty Images
Remco Evenepoel 
