Remco Evenepoel has had to put up with questions about his controversial Tour de France preparation program and his relationship with team co-leader Florian Lipowitz.<\/p>\n
And now he\u2019s having to fend off questions about his extreme weight loss, too.<\/p>\n
Evenepoel revealed Thursday he lost \u201calmost 4 kilograms\u201d in a rapid cut pre-Tour cut.<\/p>\n
It showed.<\/p>\n
Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe\u2019s multi-million leader was looking shredded Thursday as he sat in the pre-race press conference in Barcelona.<\/p>\n
For a rider who averages around 63 kilos [139 lbs] across the year, a 4-kilo [9 lbs] loss is a 6 percent swing in body mass \u2013 whether from fat or muscle.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe approached the weight loss in a smart way,\u201d Evenepoel told Sporza<\/em> last week. \u201cMy weight has gone down, but the power has stayed.\u201d<\/p>\n Evenepoel did not reveal his new weight or how long he spent on his Tour de France diet as he spoke to the massed media.<\/p>\n However, an eyeball inspection suggests he\u2019s chiseled himself in the chase for a watt-per-kilo ratio to rival Tadej Poga\u010dar.<\/p>\n The 26-year-old is a totally different rider from the one who finished third at the Tour of Flanders this April.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t do anything crazy \u2013 I stayed in a calorie deficit in a smart way,\u201d Evenepoel said last week. \u201cThat ensured the right balance.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not like last year, when I felt completely drained by the end of June.\u201d<\/p>\n Evenepoel\u2019s revelations throw the thorny topic of race weight back into the spotlight.<\/p>\n Pauline Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot found herself at the center of a highly gendered debate about rider health when she climbed to the top of the Tour de France Femmes last summer.<\/p>\n Her extreme and rapid weight loss put issues such as RED-S and bone density into as many headlines as the race for the maillot jaune<\/em>.<\/p>\n Evenepoel hailed the help of his new trainer, Tim Heemskerk, in his chase for race weight.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce I reach that weight, it stays there,\u201d Evenepoel said Friday.<\/p>\n \u201cI have a new coach who monitored everything closely and kept everything under control in terms of power,\u201d he said. \u201cI am happy with where I am.\u201d<\/p>\n Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe swiped Heemskerk from Visma-Lease a Bike earlier this year after the physiologist found wild success with Jonas Vingegaard and Matteo Jorgenson.<\/p>\n Evenepoel said his controversial decision to skip racing for two months ahead of the Tour allowed him to acclimate to his new coach and lose weight in a slower, safer way than years past.<\/p>\n \u201cFor me, it was the best decision to not race after Li\u00e8ge-Bastogne-Li\u00e8ge. I had a lot of time to prepare in a good way,\u201d Evenepoel said Thursday.<\/p>\n \u201cI needed to change my coach. That was a big reason why I didn\u2019t take on any races after that \u2013 to make sure that I can work well together with him.\u201d<\/p>\n Heemskerk is Evenepoel\u2019s third trainer in just a year.<\/p>\n After years working with Quick-Step staffer Koen Pelgrim, the 26-year-old spent his early months at Red Bull with Dan Lorang.<\/p>\n \u201cFor the moment, everything has been going very well [with Heemskerk],\u201d Evenepoel said Thursday.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the first two months have been good, so I hope it will stay at least for many more years.\u201d<\/p>\n Evenepoel isn\u2019t the only rider who will have been on a Tour de France diet in recent months.<\/p>\n Racing weight and the watts per kilo ratio is a critical but dangerous element of grand tour success.<\/p>\n Poga\u010dar admitted in May he needed to shed a few kilos after he bulked up for the cobbled classics. Many other GC hopefuls will have been going hungry through the early summer.<\/p>\n Altitude camps are used to carefully chisel a couple of kilos from a rider\u2019s winter jacket so they\u2019re sharp for the endless climbs of the Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es and Alps.<\/p>\n Riders tread a tightrope as they try to strip weight while preserving watts.<\/p>\n Sickness, burnout, and a hit to durability are only a few grams away.<\/p>\n Evenepoel admitted last week that the pursuit of leanness and a bout of overtraining bit him last year.<\/p>\n He lost weight too fast. His energy balance and immune system went down with it.<\/p>\n A Tour de France DNF was the ultimate result.<\/p>\n \u201cBack then, I could barely complete any blocks of training during my last altitude\u00a0camp,\u201d Evenepoel told Sporza<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cThis year I have been able to do everything, even in the extreme heat,\u201d he said. \u201cI am extremely satisfied with the evolution I have undergone.<\/p>\n \u201cI am standing at the start [of the Tour] with a completely different feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n Evenepoel\u2019s razor-sharp racing form under the Heemskerk regimen will be put to the test immediately at this Tour de France. Steep climbs will make the difference on stages 1 and 2 in Barcelona.<\/p>\n Questions about whether a lighter Remco is a more durable Remco will be answered in week three in the Alps.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/road\/road-racing\/tour-de-france\/evenepoel-defends-extreme-tour-de-france-weight-loss\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2283770851-scaled.jpg”] Jim Cotton Updated July 4, 2026 05:59AM Remco Evenepoel has had to put up with questions about his controversial Tour de France preparation program and his relationship with team co-leader Florian Lipowitz. And now he\u2019s having to fend off questions about his extreme weight loss, too. Evenepoel revealed Thursday he lost \u201calmost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-2027441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2027441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2027441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2027441\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2027441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2027441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2027441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Evenepoel lost weight and gained Vingegaard\u2019s trainer in racing lay-off<\/h2>\n
![\"Evenepoel](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2283887405.jpg?width=2048&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")
Remco reborn under Heemskerk\u2019s Tour de France regimen<\/h2>\n
![\"Evenepoel](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2284461319.jpg?width=2048&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")