Second to Tadej Poga\u010dar last year, Remco Evenepoel has one goal in mind for Sunday\u2019s European championships: to win.<\/p>\n
The Belgian has already won many of the big one day races he has been targeting in the sport: he was road world champion in 2022, Olympic champion in 2024, has won TTs at the same level and has clocked up two editions of Li\u00e8ge-Bastogne-Li\u00e8ge and four of the Clasica San Sebastian.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s a winner, and Sunday\u2019s mission is to triumph.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a problem though: his performance last weekend in the road worlds.<\/p>\n
Evenepoel had looked supreme in the time trial seven days earlier, and also dominated the GP Cycliste de Qu\u00e9bec. But his form deserted him when it was most needed, with things simply not working out in the road worlds.<\/p>\n
It is, he said, something that will spur him on.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say I\u2019m out for revenge, but I was definitely a bit disappointed that I wasn\u2019t at the appointment,\u201d he stated, referring to what was one of the biggest goals of his this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely been in my head over the last few days.\u201d<\/p>\n
When both Evenepoel and Belgium teammate Wout van Aert failed to perform at their best level in Montr\u00e9al rumors went around that they were sick. That presumption was furthered in part by the illnesses of Lore De Schepper, Fleur Moors and Lotte Claes of the Belgian team.<\/p>\n
Evenepoel was quick to quash those suggestions in the pre-Europeans press conference held on Friday evening.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, no\u2026 Don\u2019t start, hey,\u201d he smiled when asked if he had a cold.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not sick,\u201d he said, according to Sporza<\/em>.<\/p>\n Instead it was down to something else.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything had gone well in the run-up to that road race, but in the end it was just a bad day in terms of feeling,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n \u201cThe intensity training in the days beforehand went well. But now I just have to switch the button and try to ride a better race on Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n Montr\u00e9al was a bigger challenge for Evenepoel.<\/p>\n Although last year\u2019s winner Tadej Poga\u010dar was absent, strong riders like Paul Seixas, Isaac Del Toro, Mathieu van der Poel, Tom Pidcock and others were present.<\/p>\n Each of those riders will be absent from the European championships, as will US competitors such as Matteo Jorgenson and eventual winner Brandon McNulty.<\/p>\n The field is less stacked and that could work in his favor, provided the race is hard enough.<\/p>\n He\u2019ll be keen to put the worlds disappointment behind him. He\u2019ll also be spurred on by the thoughts of winning the European road race title for the first time.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s a big motivation for me,\u201d Evenepoel confirmed. \u201cThe urge to do it is certainly present. That was actually the case last year, but it didn\u2019t work out then.\u201d<\/p>\n The issue then was Poga\u010dar, who dominated the race. But the Slovenian champion is absent this time around due to injury, which removes one major challenger.<\/p>\n Several of those other rivals from the worlds will also be missing, but there are still strong riders to contend with.<\/p>\n One big concern is the Italian Giulio Ciccone. \u201cHe is really in good shape and will definitely compete for the win,\u201d he said. Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d is another. \u201cHe was good at Montreal and will be motivated for his own audience,\u2019 he said, referring to the championships being held in Rogli\u010d\u2019s native Slovenia.<\/p>\n What\u2019s crucial is that Evenepoel performs at his best on Sunday.<\/p>\n He said the shift in time zones from Canada made things a little trickier and that he still felt the effect on Tuesday. However by Wednesday he said his usual rhythm had returned.<\/p>\n \u201cThe training has gone pretty well, so I hope everything goes in a positive line towards Sunday now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n If it does, he will certainly be right up there.<\/p>\n Canada didn\u2019t work out well but Slovenia might.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/road\/road-racing\/evenepoel-hoping-better-at-euro-champs\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/GettyImages-2296931034.jpg”] Updated October 3, 2026 04:13PM Second to Tadej Poga\u010dar last year, Remco Evenepoel has one goal in mind for Sunday\u2019s European championships: to win. The Belgian has already won many of the big one day races he has been targeting in the sport: he was road world champion in 2022, Olympic champion […]<\/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-2178180","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\/2178180","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=2178180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2178180\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2178180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2178180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2178180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Who are the big rivals?<\/h2>\n
![\"Belgian](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/GettyImages-2297702519.jpg?width=3840&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")