As Remco Evenepoel sees it, Tim Wellens was a deserving winner of the Belgian Road National Championships - but for the silver medallist at least, the bizarre tactics used by his other rivals in Sunday's race made it much tougher to challenge Wellens for the victory, too.
Evenepoel finished 38 seconds down on Wellens, after the UAE Team Emirates-XRG racer forged a spectacular 41-kilometre solo winning attack and Evenepoel engaged in a long, unsuccessful two-man pursuit with Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck).
But while even Wellens later described Evenepoel as 'the best rider in the race,' and Evenepoel had been able to burn his rivals off his wheel on numerous occasions in the first part of the Championships road race, the Soudal-Quickstep racer still couldn't add a gold medal to the one he'd already acquired three days earlier in the elite men's time trial.
"Some teams' tactics decided how the finish played out," a visibly disappointed Evenepoel told reporters afterwards. "For example, I found it hard to understand how Lotto were racing.
"They had the legs to go after all the attacks during the day, but at the end, there wasn't anybody left to collaborate and work with them.
"Their Championships tactics were very bizarre, even if they had some strong guys up there, like [Alec] Segaert and [Jenno] Berckmoes, who are both in great form.
"I found it hard to understand their tactics. You don't win a Championships racing like that…"
Evenepoel was more forgiving of the strategy employed by Philipsen, who failed to collaborate with him in full when the two of them were trying to chase down Wellens.
As Evenepoel pointed out, he could understand Philipsen's reticence given the Alpecin racer's strength as a sprinter, while he was not overly happy at having Philipsen sitting on his back wheel as well. The consequence of their only partial alliance, he said, was that it was like having "one and a half riders against one [Wellens]."
Evenepoel paid full credit to Wellens, in any case, saying that he hadn't been able to follow him immediately when the UAE racer attacked. On the plus side, too, while he was upset at not winning, he did take the positives for the Tour de France.
"I did a good race, I wanted it to toughen it all up, even if the course itself was not overly selective. The only real climb was a kilometre long, and for the rest of the route it was difficult to surprise anybody."
"I'm a winner, so it's only natural I'm disappointed. I'd have liked to go to the Tour with the Belgian National Champion's jersey on my back, but that won't be the case. But there are other Championships this year."
Evenepoel will now take a short break to be as fresh as possible for the start of the Tour de France on July 5 in Lille. But as he concluded after his Championships races, "the signs are good."
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