No matter what else happened of note in the Vuelta a España this year, one highlight stood out above them all. This was the race where Belgium, the sport’s heartland par excellence, both ended a ridiculously long drought on Grand Tour wins. And it simultaneously did so with a rider whose dramatic rise to success when still in his very early twenties augers more than well for the years to come.
On Sunday night moments before he claimed his final red jersey, Remco Evenepoel (Quick Step-AlphaVinyl) called his Vuelta win “history for my team, my country and myself” and it’s hard to disagree on all three counts. His initial stated goal of a stage win and a top ten placing overall was perhaps deliberately under ambitious as a way of avoiding media pressure.
But his final haul of a summit stage win, a time trial stage win and more than two weeks in red, not to mention a default victory in the best young rider classification, is testament to Evenepoel’s potential, thoroughness and sheer hard work which he put into his buildup, as well as to what he was really able to achieve.
While much to Patrick Lefevere’s delight, QuickStep-Alpha Vinyl have definitively shed their label of being ‘just’ a Classics team thanks to their first ever Grand Tour triumph, Evenepoel’s 36th career win and tenth stage race also confirms the trend of young riders having greater and greater impact on this sport’s highest levels.
As Joxean Fernandez Matxin, sports director at UAE Team Emirates and whose latest protege, Juan Ayuso, claimed the third spot on the podium at just 19, told Cyclingnews, “this kind of success [with young riders] is no longer surprising.”
Apart from his youth, team and country, what was also noticeable about Evenepoel’s triumph is how he was able both to turn around a Vuelta plot line that initially looked to be running against him and then manage his lead in such an assured fashion. It’s already been almost forgotten, but for the best part of its opening week, Primož Roglič and Jumbo-Visma had been the rider and the team to beat in this year’s Vuelta.
Jumbo-Visma’s stunningly strong opening team time trial triumph on home soil in Utrecht, the swapping around of the red jersey between different teammates in the days that followed, and the powerful uphill victory for Roglič at Laguardia on stage 4 as soon as the race returned to Spain, all strongly suggested that the Dutch team were on line for a repeat of their Tour domination and that the Slovenian was back to…
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