Remco runs alone. Since youth, as if he was still the one from that unforgettable World Cup that he won as a teenager, shortly after hanging up his boots and the Belgian U-18 soccer team shirt. Montonera, crash, comeback to the peloton, escape and victory. A sequence that he often repeats. Like in San Sebastián 2019: he lags behind, comes back, distributes cans of water to his teammates, leaves and wins. He is puzzled by the order of the squad, that amoeba that takes different forms, sometimes capricious, sometimes ordered by some dominant group. Sunday ended exhausted, whiplash after whiplash on the urban circuit of Glasgow, because after each start came the braking in the next corner to avoid swallowing the fence, all close, all closed. His youthful spirit was exhausted.
He prefers to go alone, even asking the car of his selection not to give him the ember. Don’t bother, please, he’s going to his business. And so, like a junior, he does it again, and if five days ago he left the memory of the rainbow for his sleeves of the jerseys of the route, in the castle of Sterling he recovered the pleasure of putting on the white jersey with the five colored stripes on the chest, now on the chrono. Once again Evenepoel, the Belgian phenomenon, a miracle of nature, 1.71 meters tall, weighing 61 kilos, against giants like Filippo Ganna, 1.93m and 82 kilos, or Joshua Tarling, another emerging figure, 1 94 tall and only 19 years old, two gifted cyclists for the time trial due to their physical constitution.
But there is Remco Evenepoel, who appears among the last, Belgian hope, several places behind Van Aert, his compatriot, and long after the folklore of hopeless cyclists ends, those of Swaziland, Cape Verde or Ghana, that they don’t even use time trial goats but road bikes, and they wear touring helmets instead of the futuristic designs of the others, so the final differences are scandalous. More than half an hour from Evenepoel to the last, the Ghanaian Henry Djangmah in 47.8 kilometers of route.
Remco is trendy, with the Specialized helmet with wide brims to avoid eddies with the shoulders, a panty adapted to the chin, the radio on the chest instead of the back, and short sleeves, just the way he likes them. And he comes out like a bull. The first pedal strokes are a declaration of intent, when Ganna and Tarling are already circulating ahead, the surprise, which is burning the clocks at the intermediate points. At the first control it is Ganna who sets the pace, with Evenepoel four seconds behind. From there, the emerging Briton deflates a bit, and by the time the Italian, in one of those unusual cycling scenes that will go down in history, overtakes Tadej Pogacar, the all-powerful Slovenian runner, bronze on the Glasgow route, It is already very clear that although the third step will be for the flying Welshman, the gold will be disputed by Evenepoel and Ganna. The others don’t count. They are corpses on bicycles that arrive snorting at the goal of the castle, some with very bad tempers when the television camera sneaks into their privacy.
And in the final battle, that endless kilometer on the jagged cobblestones of Broad Street, Remco Evenepoel holds his ground. 12.28 seconds left for the youngest time trialist to win a World Cup. He did it again, and we will have to keep talking about Evenepoel, and probably Josh Tarling, who was also on the podium at only 19 years old. Little will be said about the Spanish, at least this time. Xabier Mikel Azparren finished in 40th place among 78 cyclists. There was no more left.
She hung the Evenepoel medal, listened to the Brabanzona, the Belgian anthem, and in the background were still the words of Marlen Reusser, the Swiss runner who abandoned the women’s time trial on Thursday in the middle of the course and who sound like those of Ricky Rubio, Simone Biles and other mentally exhausted athletes: “I am not a machine. She wasn’t ready to run and she didn’t feel like running. The moment I set foot on the ground I thought it was probably a bad idea, but I wanted to do it”, and notes: “Since the Tour, I feel like I need time to breathe and rediscover my desire to go out and win. I need that moment of relaxation.” The one who was the top favorite to win the World Cup openly confesses: “I feel like I’m trapped in an endless downward spiral.”
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