Eyewitness – Evenepoel and Van der Poel ignite Montmartre hill as 500,000 line streets of Paris for Olympics road race

It’s 11am in Paris on August 3, the men’s Olympic road race has just started on Pont d’Iéna, while six kilometres north on Rue Lepic, a French fan is borrowing a can of yellow spray paint from a Belgian who had marked “Remco” onto the narrow road’s cobbles to write “Madouas” some 20 metres up the course.

Little did the pair, who shook hands after the interaction, know that six hours later on the second ascent of three up the fabled hill to Montmartre, it would be the two riders they had wanted, Remco Evenepoel and Valentin Madouas, who were at the front of the bike race for Olympic gold.