Evenepoel: 'How often has a rider won both the time trial and road race at the same World Championships? Never'

Remco Evenepoel is in Canada and will line up at the GP Québec this Friday. Together with the GP Montréal, the race provides the perfect preparation for the World Cycling Championships in Canada. The Belgian, who has already worn the rainbow jersey on the road, knows there is now an ideal opportunity to achieve something unique, especially with Tadej Pogačar absent.

Evenepoel is returning to Canada to race for the first time in seven years. The GP Québec will be his first test. "Generally, it's preparation for the World Championships, but obviously there's the ambition to win," he told Cyclingnews. "In every race, I'll aim as high as possible. That's how I start every race, so I won't approach these races any differently."

Evenepoel has significantly improved his explosive power in recent years. The Belgian can now rely much more on his sprint, while he has also shown he can hold his own in races such as the Tour of Flanders, where he finished third on his debut. The Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe leader is therefore looking forward to the Canadian one-day races, with their repeated short climbs appearing well suited to his characteristics.

"Especially Québec, it has that very specific final climb," he explained. "I think the climb suits me better now than before. That's why I'm here with ambitions to win – that's always the case when I start races. We'll see how it goes, but the ambition is definitely there to try and win one of the two, or why not both?"

The biggest goal, of course, does not come this weekend, but afterwards. The World Cycling Championships begin on September 20 with the men's and women's time trials, before the road race takes place one week later. Evenepoel is the defending champion against the clock and has won the event in each of the past three years, while he also became road race world champion in 2022. But the Belgian has even bigger ambitions in mind.

"How often has a rider won both the time trial and the road race at the same World Championship? Never," Evenepoel said ambitiously. "That was my goal last year, and it is again this year. It is something I want to do in my career." Should Evenepoel win the time trial in Montréal, the Belgian would draw level with Tony Martin and Fabian Cancellara as the joint record holder with four elite men's world time trial titles.

A second road race world title, however, might be even more valuable. Since his victory in Australia in 2022, Evenepoel finished 25th in Glasgow, fifth in Zürich and second in Kigali. That runner-up finish came behind Pogačar, but with the Slovenian absent this time around, Evenepoel may well enter the race as the top favorite. Following the Tour de France, he has therefore trained specifically with the aim of reaching his absolute peak in Canada.

"I think it's clear that you need to have a bit more explosivity for these races coming, so obviously we've looked at that. We've worked more on the sprint. So the training has been a bit different to before the Tour de France. That's normal because these aren't races where you climb for 20km, these races have more just hills than mountains, so it's different."