Patrick Lefevere, team boss at Soudal QuickStep, has said the reasons for Remco Evenepoel's collapse on today's stage 13 at La Vuelta were still a mystery to him and everyone in the team. However, he claims he knew from looking at his star rider, even before he was dropped, that he was doomed.
He also dismissed questions - in the media and social media - around the dominance of Jumbo Visma, after the team took a 1-2-3 on the Col du Tourmalet summit finish today, and also moved into the top three places in the general classification.
"Sepp Kuss, Primoz Roglic and Jonas Vingegaard are anything but out of nowhere. They are top talents, with the rather unique combination of a light body and a gigantic engine," he said, adding the three riders were not doing anything at La Vuelta they hadn't done before now.
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“I am certainly not the man who questions collective dominance. Our team has experienced this often enough in one-day work. One, two and three in Paris-Roubaix, for those who might have forgotten. I then experienced for myself how strong the phenomenon of extracting spirit is. In addition to power, VO2Max and what else, success in cycling fortunately also depends on those kinds of immeasurable, untrainable mental mechanisms. Winning always makes you win more often."
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While Lefevere said Evenepoel never missed a target - and the Vuelta was his main target for this year - a new reality was now starting for him after tanking today - nearly 90km from the finish and losing 27 minutes - in a manner nobody had ever seen before. But he also completely ruled out the possibility Evenepoel was ill.
The team boss added the media was ringing him as Evenepoel was going out the back on the Col d'Aubisque. He complained journalists always went about their work more urgently when things were going badly than when everything was going well.
“On the Aubisque I immediately knew what time it was," Lefevere added, writing his column this evening in Het Nieuwsblad. "Remco doesn't really have a poker face on the bike and meanwhile I can read his facial expressions fairly well. I saw the same face that I saw in the Giro after the time trial. The best word I have for it is 'pulled'. I sincerely hope that we will not wake up with the same reality as then: sick – corona, that should not happen again.”
He added everyone has "an off day" and he believed that's what had happened. Once he was well in the morning, Evenepoel would continue in the race and Lefevere now believed he had a new freedom, something he had never had before.
"Our doctors don't know yet what's going on, and I certainly don't know what's going on. If he wakes up healthy, he will enter a new reality: racing with the idea 'everything is possible, nothing is mandatory'. Remco has actually never been granted that.”
