Remco Evenepoel believes he can beat Tadej Pogačar in the 2026 Tour de France. He reveals this in an extensive interview with Sporza. He admits he still has a lot of work ahead of him to achieve this. However, the need for a change to Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe became clear during a conversation with The Observer at the recent media day of the German team.
After the 2023 World Time Trial Championships, Evenepoel says he was very close to signing with INEOS Grenadiers. With all the internal changes happening within that team at the time, things got delayed. "At a certain point, I really couldn’t wait any longer," the double Olympic champion tells the British outlet. According to The Observer, the transfer was made 'almost impossible' by his then team Soudal Quick-Step, who imposed a buyout clause of seven million euros.
That was too much for the British team. Therefore, Evenepoel remained loyal to his team, something he also did the previous year when he decided to stay with his Belgian employer ahead of the World Championships in Zürich. Last summer, that changed, and Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe became his new team. "I stayed because there were promises made. Lots of changes and I believed in them. But at a certain point, I felt like: 'okay, this is never going to happen – it’s a no-brainer'. I needed a change."
Challenging Pogačar
In an extensive interview with Sporza, he says he thinks he can win the Tour de France next year. "If everything continues to go well and if I can have a really good winter, good training camps and hit the points I’m looking for in the spring races. If I can already show in Catalonia that I’m here to win, like I was heading into the Giro in 2023, then I definitely think I can reach that level. Also with the support structure I have here, the backing and the teammates, all the scientific input involved here. Then I think there’s still a lot of room for progress."
But he will have to get past the Slovenian world champion who has won the Tour de France four times since 2020. "I want to be better than him. That’s very difficult, we all know that. But that’s the reason why I came here. To take those steps. To go beyond him, on and over. That will require a lot of energy, but I’m very motivated and I really needed this new step to completely break through a ceiling. I hope to boom because of it this year."
