Remco Evenepoel said he deliberately stayed away from social media in the lead-up to his surprise Tour of Flanders debut announcement on Wednesday, joking with the media in Flemish on Wednesday that he was “able to enjoy in a very relaxed way how we ripped you off.”
The shock news of Evenepoel’s planned start came out on Wednesday at the start of Dwars door Vlaanderen, after it had been rumoured since November and denied constantly by the Belgian star and his entourage at Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe.
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His chances for Sunday
While this did form part of his pre-race press moment, the focus was mainly on how Evenepoel could perform on debut, and he didn’t hold back when it came to how confident he was.
“Do I feel like I can win? Otherwise, I wouldn’t be starting here,” he said, before contradicting what his former team boss, Patrick Lefevere, had said earlier in the week about asking Evenepoel year after year to make his debut.
“I told him for so many years to do it, and he didn’t,” Lefevere told Cyclingnews after Dwars door Vlaanderen. “Now he’s gone from us, and he’s going to do it.”
“It is a race I have wanted to ride for a long time, but that was held back a bit in…
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