Second continental title in the discipline for Soudal Quick-Step’s 25-year-old.
where the Belgian lined out just three days after taking silver at the Worlds. It was another remarkable performance from Evenepoel, who came to the start straight from Rwanda, where in addition to being runner-up in the road race, he also retained his ITT rainbow jersey.
The 25-year-old was the last rider to start the 24km individual time trial between Loriol-sur-Drôme and Étoile-sur-Rhône, which featured two climbs – the Mur d’Allex (400m, 6.6%) and a 1.1km one averaging 5.2% whose top coincided with the finish line of the race. Evenepoel showed there’s a reason why he’s nicknamed “The Aero Bullet”, as he went fastest through all three intermediate checkpoints and constantly increased his advantage.
By the time he arrived at the finish, where he was clocked in 28:26 after averaging a stunning 50.63km/h average speed in windy conditions, Remco was more than 40 seconds clear of Filippo Ganna (Italy), who took silver, and Denmark’s Niklas Larsen, the bronze medalist. Soudal Quick-Step had two riders in the top five Wednesday afternoon, as Ethan Hayter concluded fourth, less than second from the podium.
“I’m super happy to take another title. The wind was pretty strong, always on the head or a bit on the sides, so it was really difficult sometimes to control the bike and to take the corners properly, but I think I managed everything well. It gives me great delight to become European Champion for the second time in my career, after 2019, when I was in my first pro year. Now I will focus on recovering and then on having some good training before Sunday’s road race. It looks like it is a beautiful course and I’m really looking forward to it”, said Remco, who now simultaneously holds the Olympic, World, European and National individual time trial titles.
Photo credit: ©Billy Ceusters / Getty Images
