From time to time, even the man with the rainbow on his back flies too close to the sun. It’s January, and Remco Evenepoel is sitting alone beneath a canopy atop the Alto Colorado, sipping on a can of Coke and silently cursing the impulsiveness that has just cost him the Vuelta a San Juan.
10km or so from the summit, the Belgian had burst forth from the peloton, turning a mammoth gear that seemed to dare anyone to follow. Nobody did.
As Evenepoel took flight, another solo exhibition seemed inevitable, but high altitude and early-season conditioning can make for a debilitating cocktail for a boy from the lowlands, regardless of his gifts. Within a couple of minutes, the wax on his wings had melted and he was forced to relent, eventually fading to finish over a minute down on winner Miguel Ángel López.
Now, Evenepoel stares into the middle distance as Soudal-QuickStep staff bustle about their usual post-race tasks and a group of journalists begins to assemble at a careful distance. They have travelled 12,000km to be here, some with the express task of covering this rider’s every move, but nobody dares to disturb this initial, hushed phase of the post-mortem.
One by one, Evenepoel’s teammates start to arrive, delivering claps on the shoulder or sympathetic grimaces as they troop past onto the team van. The solidarity seems to shake him from his torpor. He gets to his feet and makes his way towards the reporters to translate his disappointment into words, but his teeth are chattering.
Yves Lampaert has an eye for these details. He pokes his head out of the van and orders his young teammate in out of the cold. It’s already early evening at 2,600m above sea level, after all, and the sun is drooping from the cloud-flecked sky. Evenepoel obeys, apologising to the reporters as he climbs aboard.
“I think my greatest flaw is that I can be quite upset for a short amount of time, and I can do or say some ruthless things in that moment”
When he emerges ten minutes later, a transfiguration has taken place. The rainbow jersey has been replaced by a thick hoodie, the shivering has given way to a smile, and the setback has been resized. In Dutch, English and French, Evenepoel now delivers an upbeat mea culpa, freely admitting he had erred in attacking alone, so forcefully and so far from the finish.
“I did a stupid move,” Evenepoel says simply. “But in the end, it’s better to make a mistake like that now than in the Giro.” By the time he finishes talking,…
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