Remco Evenepoel loses significant time to Vingegaard but finds plenty of positives

Today's cycling fan was eagerly anticipating not only the E3 Saxo Classic but also the first real seasonal showdown between Jonas Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel in the Tour of Catalonia. However, Evenepoel had to concede quite some time to the Dane on the slopes of the Coll de Pal, though he was by no means unhappy with his performance.

1 minute and 39 seconds: that was the gap between the untouchable Vingegaard and Evenepoel at the improvised summit (due to strong winds) on the Coll de Pal. For the Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe leader, this is no cause for alarm—in fact, quite the opposite. "Jonas Vingegaard’s attack was very strong. It was really hard to follow him," he admitted afterward to Sporza and Het Nieuwsblad.

"Once the groups formed after that, I didn’t suffer too much for a few kilometers. In the end, Lipo (Florian Lipowitz, ed.) was even further ahead, so it wasn’t up to me to start chasing. Maybe I could have done more today, but for our team, this is still a good result."

"Definitely better than a month ago"
For Evenepoel, it was primarily a good first test to see where he currently stands as a climber. "Climbing was definitely better than in the UAE Tour. But still, if our group had worked together better, we might have been able to catch the group ahead of us."

"Besides, my sprint was quite decent, so I certainly didn’t cross the line completely spent. But overall, this was already better than a month ago," Evenepoel, now sixth in the general classification, remains optimistic.