“This is the new cycling,” sighs runner-up after Evenepoel’s Mallorca statement ride

Christian Scaroni (XDS Astana) finished second at a minute and a half and neatly captured the feeling in the bunch afterwards at Cycling Pro Net.

“This is the new cycling. If Tadej or Remco is racing, you don’t know when they’ll attack. When he went, I was a bit too far back. He was too strong. On the final climb it finally went well and I went for second place: the podium was the maximum possible.”

Third-placed António Morgado (UAE Team Emirates–XRG) was the only rider who tried to follow, but he eventually had to let go. “We know Remco is one of the strongest riders in the world, so he deserved to win.”

Evenepoel said before the race that the plan was to go from far out — and that is exactly what happened. “The wind invited us to open up the race early. We wanted to make it hard, and our little plan was executed perfectly. I’m happy with how I felt. It’s fantastic to start the season like this.”

“It was a long solo, especially the flat section of 30 kilometres took quite a while. But luckily I had a tailwind,” the Belgian continued. “I tried to keep the tempo on the climbs and then ease off a little. All in all it went exactly to plan. It’s always nice to start the season like this after a few months of training.”

“I enjoy being able to win this early in the year, especially for this new team. It shows we did good work over the winter,” Evenepoel concluded.