THE MAKING OF REMCO EVENEPOEL

The 2022 Vuelta a España champion has just secured Belgium's first Grand Tour win since 1978. We look at the hottest property in the pro peloton and his unorthodox route into the sport

- Chris Marshall-Bell

It is summer in Lanzarote and Remco Evenepoel, the 15-year-old footballer and captain of his beloved RSC Anderlecht and Belgian U16 national team, is bored. “Remco came up to me and asked if I wanted to join him on a bike ride,” remembers his team-mate Sebastiaan Bornauw, who by coincidence was at the same hotel with his own family.

“I said yes because I thought it would be 50km,” continues Bornauw to CW. “But Remco said, ‘Oh no, it’s much longer than that. It’ll be 160km or 180km.’ I said, ‘Remco, I’m a footballer and I weigh 90kg. I can do 50km, but Lanzarote is not flat and I haven’t trained for that.’ He said he had trained, so I said, ‘Remco, good luck,’ and he went by himself. He just loved to suffer physically.”

Evenepoel, now a Vuelta a España winner and the hottest young thing in pro cycling, was a defensive midfielder and a left-back, good on the ball and an organised and inspirational leader. But his teammates, including Bornauw – who now plays in Germany’s Bundesliga for VfL Wolfsburg – would often remark on Evenepoel’s endurance traits rather than his footballing qualities. Indeed, when he played for PSV Eindhoven between the ages of 11 and 14, coaches at the Dutch team remarked on the abnormally high V02 max possessed by the kid with floppy blond hair.