‘I expect Tadej Pogačar to be almost unreachable’ – Remco Evenepoel outlines hierarchy before Tour de France

The time slot chosen by Soudal-QuickStep for Remco Evenepoel’s pre-Tour de France press conference was a curious one. He is cycling’s most notable football man since Gianni Savio, but Evenepoel sat down to meet the press just as Belgium were kicking off against Ukraine in their final group fixture at Euro 2024. The timing hardly suited the Belgian sporting press either. Maybe that was the point.

“Only five minutes because Belgium is playing,” Evenepoel said when he appeared on screen for the video conference, joking but not joking. Still, even with one eye firmly on the exploits of Romelu Lukaku and the lads – “Sorry, that was close to a goal,” he apologised at one point when the game demanded his full attention – he multi-tasked his way through a discussion of his Tour debut. The man really can do it all.