Remco Evenepoel may have won La Vuelta and the World Championships this season - not to mention Liège-Bastogne-Liège - but he was not Belgium's sports person of the year, according to influential Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad.
It has said as cycling was not a mainstream sport, and Evenepoel did not beat top tier rivals to win the Vuelta - the first Belgian Grand Tour win in 44 years - the 22-year-old could not expect to be crowned his country's sports person of the year.
Instead, Het Nieuwsblad sports writer Marc Vermeiren said "we still estimate the performance of one compatriot even higher" and that honour had to go to Real Madrid goal keeper Thibaut Courtois. He singled out his performances in the Champions League, especially the number of saves he pulled out in the final against Liverpool back in May as well as through the campaign.
Advertisement
Vermeiren said when Evenepoel win La Vuelta people in Belgium were calling for him to be crowned sports person of the year but this was "highly premature" because the Vuelta as a "B event with a C line-up". And while he went on to win the Worlds a week later, Vermeiren said nothing could compare to the global reach of the Champions League and "international cycling remains a peripheral phenomenon".
Related News
He also said the fact Evenepoel was staying with QuickStep-Alpha Vinyl, with its small budget in the context of global sport, underlined cycling's place as a second tier sport.
"With a budget of €20 million, Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl is close to Charleroi or KV Mechelen, followers in the eighth football competition in Europe," Vermeiren wrote. "In a larger sport, Evenepoel - such as Eden Hazard, Britt Herbots or Emma Meesseman - would have crossed the border at the first manifestations of that extraordinary talent.
"The Champions League of football is – far above the Super Bowl or the NBA Championship – the most important club trophy of the global sport. Rarely, if ever, has one player determined the outcome as much as Thibaut Courtois and his nine saves in Real Madrid's final against Liverpool."
Luckily for Evenepoel, all sports journalists get to vote on the sports person of the year award - which he won three years ago - ahead of its presentation in December.
