Remco Evenepoel heads into his final preparation race for the Tour de France, the Critérium du Dauphiné, "a step ahead of last year" according to his Soudal-QuickStep team, after another crash-affected season where he will take on Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard.
Last year, Evenepoel was ramping up for his first appearance in two months at the Dauphiné, having crashed and sustained fractures at Itzulia Basque Country. In 2025, it was the dooring incident in the off-season that put him out of action until April with several injuries, and his seen him searching for top form in anticipation of the Tour.
With just four days to go until the start of the prestigious eight-day stage race in France, Evenepoel's coach Koen Pelgrim is staying measured about the expectations of the Belgian, but gave a greater insight on a call to Nieuwsblad and international media into how the Olympic Champion's form is shaping up.
"Remco is definitely better on schedule than last year. Then he started the altitude training camp for the Dauphiné with a disadvantage; he was struggling at the beginning of that training camp, and he was really not where we hoped he would be," said Pelgrim, reported by Nieuwsblad.
"In that respect, he is already a step ahead of last year. After the accumulation of competitions in the spring, the week of rest really did him good, and he was able to start the altitude training camp at a pretty good level."
Despite this positive development, after Evenepoel returned with a bang at Brabantse Pijl in April, and had mixed results from Amstel Gold Race through to the Tour de Romandie where he was fifth, again, Pelgrim ensured he was realistic with his ambitions.
"He is now one step further than last season just before the Dauphiné. But last year, Remco improved a lot between the Dauphiné and the Tour. So we'll have to see if Remco is still in a better position at the start of the Tour," said the coach.
"He stayed off the bike for four months. You can't just make up for something like that. You can get back to a good level relatively quickly, but it's those last few percentage points that are crucial.
"For that, you have to be able to train consistently over a long period. We hope that Remco can gain those last two or three percentage points in the coming weeks. We cannot do magic."
One area where Pelgrim has seen clear, measurable improvement was with Evenepoel's weight, already nearing the ideal race level for which the Belgian team were looking at the Tour's start on July 5.
"He is one-and-a-half kilos lighter than last year at this time of year," said Pelgrim, confirming that the tapering down has been more gradual than after last year's Dauphiné.
"When you have to lose a lot of weight in a short period, it always takes its toll on your strength, recovery or even both. That was the story of last year: we had to chase both his competition weight and his form. The fact that he doesn't have to do that anymore this year is positive."
Evenepoel will be backed at the Dauphiné by Pascal Eenkhoorn, Valentin Paret-Peintre, Casper Pedersen, Pepijn Reinderink, Maximilian Schachmann and Louis Vervaeke, with the leader similarly not being overly bullish in pursuit of a top result against Pogačar and Vingegaard.
"I’m happy to be back in action with the team. I had a solid altitude training camp in Sierra Nevada and now I’m ready for the Dauphiné," said Evenepoel in a team release.
"I can’t say that I’m going there with any specific goals, as the most important thing will be to see how the form is. It goes without saying that I would like to be in the fight for a couple of good results, but the plan is to take it one stage at a time and see where this leads next week."
With the Tour just around the corner, Evenepoel will hope he's closed the gap to the Slovenian and Dane, and that he can at least once again finish third at the Tour ,after a great debut in 2024. Pelgrim said this could still be his ceiling for the moment, against the respective three-time and two-time Tour champions.
“We always aim higher, but Pogačar's level was exceptionally high last year and closing that gap is very difficult. And Vingegaard will also be better now than last year," added the coach. "So even though Remco has made a step, that does not mean that he will necessarily do better than third place."
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