Remco Evenepoel remains upbeat after limiting losses on Tour de France favourites in Massif Central mountains

He’s still in the game. Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) came through an arduous stage 11 of the Tour de France with his second place overall still intact despite losing 25 seconds to top favourites Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) and Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease A Bike). And as the Belgian pointed out, time-wise, the size of his setback was smaller than in the Alps, too.

Evenepoel barely had to think about his choice of not trying to follow Pogačar when he went for it on the Puy Mary, he said, particularly given Pogačar’s teammate Adam Yates had laid down a searing acceleration to help the Slovenian achieve maximum liftoff.