Remco Evenepoel's still young career is marked by success and pain. A combination that torments and comforts him in equal measure, a continuous rebirth that he is experiencing for the third time at the beginning of 2025. After his accident in December involving a postal vehicle door while training, the Belgian made a strong comeback, winning the Brabantse Pijl after 190 days without competing and challenging Tadej Pogacar to finish third in the Amstel Gold Race, a prelude in the Ardennes to the Liege-Bastogne-Liege this Sunday, a race he has already won twice (2022 and 2023).
After falling off a cliff in Lombardy in 2020, during the descent of Sormano (fractured pelvis and lung contusion), and the serious incident in the Tour of the Basque Country last year with Vingegaard and Primoz Roglic, Remco once again experienced the frustration of broken bones and surgeries. This time, it was so concerning that everything was on the verge of ending, as he himself confessed. Not only did he fracture his right scapula, several ribs, and his right hand, but after a few weeks, he discovered a nerve injury in his shoulder (the same one damaged in the Itzulia) "that has not yet healed." "If I had been a tennis player, basketball player, or volleyball player, my career would have ended," stated the Soudal Quick Step rider.
For this return to the elite, the double Olympic gold medalist in Paris not only needed time, treatments, and training but also a lot of mental work. To achieve this, Remco relied on Oumi Rayane, his Moroccan wife whom he married three years ago. Without being asked, before the Brabantse Pijl, the Belgian admitted his conversion to Islam: "It has been a very dark period, but my people and my faith have helped me tremendously." "We often pray together, and we will continue to do so. It's incredible what you have taught me, and it's a wonderful feeling to share this with you. Without you, I probably would have given up my career," he wrote in a social media post to his partner.
Evenepoel watched with envy from the television the duels between Pogacar and Van der Poel in the early classics but did not lose his patience or rush his return to competition. After weeks of indoor training, on February 1st, he was finally able to ride his bike outdoors, and of course, Spain was the key place to get back in shape. He went to the Costa Blanca with Oumi for an initial training block, which he completed in early April with a two-week altitude training camp in Sierra Nevada.
This hard work has paid off. In the Brabantse Pijl, he outpaced Van Aert to defeat him in a sprint, and in the Amstel Gold Race (255.9 kilometers and 34 climbs) - where he suffered an early fall - when everything seemed in favor of Pogacar, he caught up with him with 8 kilometers to go alongside the winner, Mattias Skjelmose. Now he sets his sights on the Fleche Wallonne and Liege and then the Tour.