Remco Evenepoel feels off this week: "Maybe I was a bit sick afterward"
Remco Evenepoel was unable to make a comeback on Saturday in the UAE Tour. The Belgian lost quite a bit of time again but felt slightly better than earlier in the week. "The gap to Isaac Del Toro is quite big, but other than that, it's manageable," he told several Belgian media outlets.
"For me, it was more positive than on Wednesday. The numbers were a bit better again, but overall I was stronger in Valencia. Maybe I didn’t recover well from that race. And perhaps I was also a bit sick afterward with some sniffles. But that probably won’t be the main reason."
"I just didn't feel super fresh," he continued. "The time trial was good, but I didn’t really recover well from it. It was just a week where I didn’t feel my best. That can happen; now it’s time to look ahead again. Although I am a bit disappointed: I came here to compete for the GC with Del Toro and Tiberi."
Sunday still holds the final stage of the UAE Tour for Evenepoel, after which he will have a few days of rest before heading to Tenerife for a high-altitude training camp. Next month, the next race on the calendar will be the Tour of Catalonia, where Evenepoel promises to do better.
"We will be racing Catalonia with a large part of the Tour squad, so it’s an important race for me. I always come back stronger from a high-altitude camp, so the expectation is that I will be a level up again in Catalonia. For now, it’s just about gradually losing some weight and getting better," he concluded.
