The Olympic Champion gets a confidence-boosting result ahead of Liège–Bastogne–Liège.
Remco Evenepoel continued his impressive string of results Wednesday afternoon, when he finished ninth at just his second Flèche Wallonne appearance. It was a solid top ten for the 25-year-old, at the end of a race that was made more difficult than usual by the inclement weather that accompanied the peloton from the moment they got underway from Ciney.
The weather didn’t stop Soudal Quick-Step from assuming pace-setting duties right from the off, a strong delegation of our riders taking the reins at the front of the peloton behind the eight-man breakaway whose maximum gap was of just two minutes. It was a superb team effort from the Soudal Quick-Step boys on this rain-affected day, which helped Evenepoel remain well-positioned and out of trouble on the slippery roads until it came to the big showdown on the Mur de Huy, where the race concluded for the 40th consecutive time.
The winner of Brabantse Pijl raced his own tempo on the gruelling slopes of the 1.3km hill which averaged 9.6%, unfazed by the different attacks that came early, long before the famous S-bend, and concluded part of a small group that finished 16 seconds behind Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates). This strong display on an explosive climb not really to his liking, and at the end of a day with temperatures belowe ten degrees Celsius, helped Remco rack up his third top ten in the space of six days, an encouraging result ahead of Sunday’s Liège–Bastogne–Liège.
“We did really well as a team. We put pressure from the beginning to make the race as hard as possible, and even though it didn’t quite work out in the end, we are content with being in the top ten and present at the front of the race. This result of Remco and our overall display give us a lot of motivation for Sunday”, said Soudal Quick-Step sports director Klaas Lodewyck.
Photo credit: ©Dario Belingheri / Getty Images
