Look, I know we live in interesting times, maybe a bit intense, as evidenced by the fact that I have declared multiple Cycling emergencies already this year — see the Paris-Roubaix schedule change emergency; the Bernard Hinault has an NFT emergency; the emergency retreat hastily scheduled to work through Wout Van Aert’s absence from Flanders; and probably a few others I can’t remember. Those were all legitimate Cycling emergencies, as you all undoubtedly recall. But they will feel like fire drills compared to what may be heading down the pike.
A Belgian might win a grand tour. Not a stage, or a bunch of stages, or the final stage or the team competition. I mean the overall victory. Something that last happened at the 1978 Giro d’Italia.
This emergency has been triggered by the Vuelta a España entering its third week with Remco Evenepoel in the overall lead. Mind you, I am not predicting an Evenepoel victory; only a fool would pick his own FSA DS captain to actually succeed before it becomes officially official. And in fact Evenepoel is giving off any number of signs that he intends to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory at some point this week. He spent the past weekend ceding time to his rivals and teetering on the edge of implosion. He dangled off the back today and only managed to save another embarrassing loss by somehow willing his tire into deflating inside the final 3km, “earning” him a s.t. designation a mere eight seconds behind Primož Roglič. He has four more stages to burn off the last remaining wisps of fuel in his tank, or to take his inattentiveness to new levels. He may even find all-new, creative ways of bungling his lead: if you haven’t heard people complain in the last hour or so about his cavalier attitude or overall disrespect for the sport, you may not be connected to the Internet.
Still, he is on track to break a 44-year drought of excellence on behalf of the country that probably cares the most about such things, and if it happens now, or next year, or further out in the future (I’m looking at you, Cian Uijtdebroeks), there will be no excuse available to the rest of us if we fail to prepare for this.
So without further ado, here are some important steps you can take right now to prepare yourselves.
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Podium Cafe – All Posts…