Evenepoel to attack for victory in this year’s Tour de France

The elite cycling stable Soudal Quick-Step has unveiled its plans for 2024, with Belgian team star Remco Evenepoel heading to the Tour de France for the first time. He won’t miss the Olympics and the world championships.

However, there are other big races on the Belgian’s calendar. In March, for example, he will take on Slovenia’s Roglič for victory in the Paris-Nice stage race.

A month later, he will ride all three Ardennes classics. The Amstel Gold Race will be a first for the two-time winner of Lutych-Bastogne-Lutych.

Together with Roglič and the defending yellow jersey holder Vingegaard, the Belgian will take part in the Critérium du Dauphiné as his last preparation for the Tour de France. A week before the start of the 111th edition of the Old Lady, Evenepoel will then take part in the national time trial championship and the Belgian road cycling championship.

“I’m quite happy with my spring program. We tried to balance it so that I have fresh legs for the Ardennes classics,” Evenepoel told reporters at a press conference during a training camp in Calpe, Spain.

Evenepoel makes his first Tour de France start

As the star Belgian has previously announced, he will take to the start of the world’s most famous cycling event for the first time at the end of June. The overall winner of the 2022 Spanish Vuelta will face the best stage racers in the battle for the yellow jersey. But he is trying to tame the high expectations.

“I rank guys like Vingegaard, Pogačar and Roglič a notch higher than myself. But of course I know what I have in me and what I can get out of myself. In two weeks I’ll be 24 years old, it’s just time for me to ride the Tour. Mentally and physically I am ready,” explained Evenepoel.

After the Tour de France, the Belgian has only the Olympics and the World Championships in Switzerland on his schedule. Whether Evenepoel will do any more races after the World Championships will be announced by the team later in the season.

Alaphilippe faces the spring classics, Landa heads to the Vuelta

A preliminary race programme is also looming for another star of the Belgian stable, Julian Alaphilippe. The Frenchman is currently in Australia, where he will lead the team at the Tour Down Under. He will then return to Europe for the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in February.

The two-time world champion will then not miss the two Italian races he dominated in 2019. In addition to Strade Bianche and the monumental Milan-San Remo, Alaphilippe will also take part in the famous Tour of Flanders in the spring.

Another experienced cyclist, Spaniard Mikel Landa, is expected to be an important reinforcement for the Soudal Quick-Step stable over the next two years. The thirty-four-year-old will work as a superdomestique for Evenepoel at the Tour de France in July. A few weeks later, he will then be the team leader himself at the Spanish Vuelta.

“We have my programme outlined. I’ll be supporting Remco Evenepoel in the Tour de France and then, hopefully, I’ll be racing in the Vuelta a España,” Landa told reporters.

Source: Global Cycling Network, CyclingNews