Remco Evenepoel reconstructs his victory in Liege and reveals: ‘Slight panic when I made the mistake of shifting’ | Overtime rate

Robin van Gucht noticed that from Remco Evenepoel’s decisive attack, so much force was interrupted that his rear wheel slipped. “I accidentally changed my teeth to smaller teeth instead of the bigger ones,” Evenpole could laugh now. “It caused me to panic for a while, because my cadence was too loud.”

Evenepoel also said he raced to class in the highly focused Liège. The knight was in his “tunnel” to the point that he could not hear the screams of the crowd on his side. “Spent a day like a time trial in the Algarve. I didn’t really hear anything because I was in the area. Only what they said in my ear came to me.”

“The only thing I could feel and hear was when I saw my coach Quinn Pilgrim standing on top. Just at that moment I looked away from the track. (Laughs) He was screaming like the other fans.”

It was an unforgettable moment when Evenpoel threw his fist at the camera almost 3 kilometers away. “At that moment I looked at the mechanic Geert and thought: As long as he doesn’t have a flat tire,” Claes Ludewick laughed.

“At that moment Klass told me I had 45 seconds. I knew it was still a mile away and they couldn’t get me back.”

Evenepoel did not cross the line this time with a stunning victory signal. “But I didn’t realize what was happening in the last 200 metres. You can ask my family: I was breathing really hard after I finished.”

Evenepoel must “share” attention with an environmental activist about his historical photos. The passenger shook his head when asked if he was angry with the man in question: “In the meantime, I’ve already had a ‘clean’ picture he’s gone away from,” laughs Evenpole, who thought of another startling idea. “Imagine if I had a flat tire at the end and the chasers came back. Then I might have to cross the line…”