{"id":2073271,"date":"2026-08-01T21:06:35","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T18:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2073271"},"modified":"2026-08-01T21:06:35","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T18:06:35","slug":"clasica-san-sebastian-a-record-fourth-for-evenepoel-but-not-without-drama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2073271","title":{"rendered":"Clasica San Sebastian: A Record Fourth for Evenepoel but Not Without Drama"},"content":{"rendered":"
Published August 1, 2026 03:06PM<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Remco Evenepoel showed off the form which recently propelled him to second overall in the Tour de France, winning a record fourth Clasica San Sebastian title with a flourish on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe rider faced a panicked moment plus a nervous chase back when he punctured with just over 50km remaining. He returned to the group of main contenders several kilometers later and, having had time to recover somewhat, he wound up the pace on the tough Murgil climb with 8.5km to go.<\/p>\n
He dropped everyone bar Richard Carapaz and led all the way to the summit, with the duo trading pulls to the finish and Evenepoel showing greater punch in the sprint.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a flat tire and then I had to come back. I was two minutes behind,\u201d he said of his mechanical issue. \u201cI almost closed the gap on the climb so I was going faster than the guys in front. I was not struggling, I just needed to pace myself because it was still a long way to go. And it was a good tactic in the end, I won.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI think it would have been better without the flat tire, then I would have tried to attack on [the climb of] Erlaitz. But it was now like this.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was happy I could win, and also a very strong Carapaz in the final who could stay with me. Very happy with the result.\u201d<\/p>\n
Evenepoel previous won the race in 2019, 2022 and 2023. He shared the record of three wins with Marino Lejarreta but now moves ahead with four.<\/p>\n
\u2018The most difficult one\u2019<\/h2>\nRemco Evenepoel (Red Bull Bora-Hansgrohe) was recently second overall in the Tour de France (Photo: Antonio Baixauli\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The 221km race suits Tour de France riders who have come out of that race with something left to give, but Evenepoel and Carapaz were the only two from this year\u2019s top ten to compete on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Second and eighth in the Tour, they are the current and previous Olympic road race champions, and were each utterly focused on the win.<\/p>\n
The race featured seven tough climbs, with the finale including the Jaizkibel, Erlaitz and the Murgil.<\/p>\n
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Eight riders got clear early on, with Tim Rex (Visma-Lease a Bike) and I\u00f1igo Elosegui (Equipo Kern Pharma) later pushing ahead and being joined by Bart Lemmen (Visma-Lease a Bike), Maxim Van Gils (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe), Michael Leonard (EF Education-EasyPost) and Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates-XRG).<\/p>\n
Van Gils pushed ahead on the Erlaitz but was joined by others, including Carapaz and American rider Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike). There was then a general regrouping, with Evenepoel making the decisive move on the final climb and being joined by Carapaz.<\/p>\n
He appeared to be clearly the strongest, but his earlier chase back made the task more nervous and more difficult than it might have been.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was I think the most difficult one of all four,\u201d he said of a victory complicated by his puncture.<\/p>\n
He will now recharge after his recent exertions at the Tour, with his program for the remainder of the season including the Canadian WorldTour races plus the world road championships, also in Canada.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n
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Shane Stokes<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Published August 1, 2026 03:06PM<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-2288596533.jpg”] Shane Stokes Published August 1, 2026 03:06PM Remco Evenepoel showed off the form which recently propelled him to second overall in the Tour de France, winning a record fourth Clasica San Sebastian title with a flourish on Saturday. The Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe rider faced a panicked moment plus a nervous chase […]<\/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-2073271","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\/2073271","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=2073271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073271\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2073271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2073271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2073271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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