Remco Evenepoel

He is the son of Patrick Evenepoel, a former racing cyclist who won the 1993 Grand Prix de Wallonie.

Remco Evenepoel started his sport career in association football, playing for the youth teams of R.S.C. Anderlecht and PSV Eindhoven, as well as being featured in the youth national teams of Belgium.

Remco Evenepoel (born 25 January 2000) is a Belgian professional cyclist who currently rides for UCI WorldTeam.

Realising that his physical abilities made him more suited for cycling, he switched to the discipline in 2017.

After some setbacks and disappointments he made a switch to cycling in 2017.

After winning the road race and time trial in the junior categories at the 2018 UCI Road World Championships, Evenepoel turned professional with, skipping the under-23 rank.

Evenepoel won the 2022 Vuelta a España and the 2022 UCI World Road Race Championships two weeks later.

The son of the former professional cyclist Patrick Evenepoel, Remco Evenepoel started his sporting career as a football player.

At the age of five he joined Anderlecht.

When he was eleven years old he changed to the youth academy of PSV Eindhoven returning to Anderlecht again at the age of fourteen.

He played four times for the Belgian U15 team and five times for the Belgian U16.

He won both the time trial and road race at the 2018 European Junior Road Cycling Championships.

The gap between him and the second place rider in the road race was 9 minutes and 44 seconds.

Later in the year, Evenepoel also won both the road race and the time trial at the UCI Junior Road World Championships.

Electing to skip the under-23 ranks, Evenepoel announced in July 2018 that he would join for the 2019 season.

For his first season, Evenepoel was scheduled to compete in shorter stage races, and skipped the cobbled, one-day Classic races.

In his debut race, the Vuelta a San Juan, Evenepoel won the young rider classification and 9th overall whilst also winning his first professional podium in the stage 3 time trial behind teammate Julian Alaphilippe and Valerio Conti.

Evenepoel's first professional victory came at the Tour of Belgium, where he won the general classification as well as a stage and the points classification.

On 3 August 2019 Evenepoel scored his first World Tour victory when he won the Clásica de San Sebastián.

He escaped from the field, accompanied by Toms Skujiņš about 20 km from the finish, dropping his companion on the last hill and soloing to victory.

He became the third-youngest rider ever to win a cycling classic in the history of the sport.

On 8 August 2019, Evenepoel won the time trial at the 2019 European Road Championships.

At the World Championships in September, Evenepoel would have been eligible to still ride in the under-23 category, but decided against it and started in the elite men's events.

He went on to win the silver medal in the time trial.

He spent much of the year sharing a room with Philippe Gilbert who acted in a mentoring role.

Evenepoel started the 2020 season at the Vuelta a San Juan, where he won the individual time trial on stage 3 and the general classification.

He then competed at the Volta ao Algarve.

Here, he won stage 2 as well as the final stage, a time trial, to clinch overall victory ahead of Maximilian Schachmann.

After the extended break in the cycling calendar due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he won the Vuelta a Burgos and the Tour de Pologne.

Evenepoel suffered a serious accident at Il Lombardia.

While descending the Muro di Sormano and after a sharp curve, he collided with a low wall on the side of a bridge and was thrown over it with the impact, falling in a dirt area near some trees, roughly 30 m below the road.

No other cyclists were involved in the accident and he was swiftly removed from the scene by the emergency services, being conscious and responsive all the time.

Hours later, his team reported that he had suffered a fractured pelvis and a right lung contusion, also stating that he would not be returning to competition in the near future.

Evenepoel returned to competition in the 2021 Giro d'Italia, finishing 7th in the prologue time trial, after which he said: "I was standing on the start ramp with some tears in my eyes. It was a hard way to come back and start the Giro like this. But immediately a top-10 spot, I didn't expect it – I'm really happy."

After spending the first 15 stages in the top-10 of the general classification, he crashed during stage 17 and was unable to continue the race.

He competed in the rescheduled 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo in both the road race and time trial earning a top 10 place in the latter.

During the 2021 World Championships in Flanders he claimed his second elite level world championship medal, taking the bronze in the time trial.

Evenepoel was the centre of a furore in the World road race.

Ahead of the race, it was felt that Wout van Aert was the protected leader for a Belgian team that was very hopeful of a home win, and Eddy Merckx stated to Het Nieuwsblad that "If there is only one leader, you really shouldn't take Evenepoel [...] He rides mainly for himself; we saw that at the Olympics".

Evenepoel responded "He always has to say something and that's a shame [...] Maybe it stings that I didn't ride for his son's team. I have a lot of respect for Eddy and apparently that is not mutual."