Can Evenepoel finally win a WorldTour stage race again? He knows he has to be better

For a while, it was uncertain whether he would even make it to the start, but in the end he caught his flight to Barcelona. “I had a good three weeks in Tenerife and was able to do everything that was on the programme,” Evenepoel told Het Laatste Nieuws. “I was able to focus well for three weeks. The UAE Tour was not my best week. At training camp I was able to reset a bit and put in a good month of work. Now we will try to get the maximum out of it.”

Evenepoel finished a disappointing tenth in the UAE Tour, where he could not follow Isaac del Toro in the mountains. Things will have to be different in Catalonia. The world time trial champion says he has prepared more specifically this time. “With the route in mind, I mainly focused on longer efforts, because there are climbs this week with finishes that last more than half an hour.”

With Vingegaard on the start line, but also riders such as João Almeida, Lenny Martinez, Felix Gall and teammate Florian Lipowitz, there will be no shortage of competition for Evenepoel. “I hope to win a stage and get the maximum out of it. I have watched the races of the past few weeks and Jonas looks very strong. He will be strong here as well.”

“For me, it is still a bit of a question mark,” the Belgian continued. “The idea is to stay as close to him as possible in the general classification and try to win as many stages as possible. The overall classification is always the hardest thing, especially in a race like this. First the focus is on stages. If you win a lot of them, you will naturally also finish high in the overall standings.”

Vingegaard dominated Paris–Nice earlier this month, winning two stages and the overall classification by a commanding margin. Evenepoel therefore expects the Visma | Lease a Bike rider to be the man to beat. “He will be in good shape, because he is building towards the Giro.”

It is a nice quiz question: what was the last WorldTour stage race that Evenepoel actually won? The answer may surprise some people: the 2022 Vuelta a España. Since then, he has regularly been in contention for victory, but things have also gone wrong often enough, as in last year’s Tour de France or the 2023 Vuelta. Evenepoel himself knows it has to improve.

“It is my ambition to win those kinds of races. I have already come close a few times, but it has not really happened yet. The only two stage races are the UAE Tour and the Tour of Poland, but of course those are not races like Paris–Nice or the Tour of Catalonia. I am critical enough of myself to know that it is time to deliver again.”