The youth ball continues.
With Remco Evenepoel's final victory over the Vuelta, the talent of a 22-year-old champion is consecrated.
With an implacable observation: time no longer allows the "old" to win over three weeks.
In 2022, the oldest of the three Grand Tour winners is 26-year-old Giro winner Jai Hindley.
Depressing for others.
At 22, "the prodigy of Schepdaal" is the first Belgian to conquer a Grand Tour since Johan de Muynck on the Tour of Italy 1978, 44 years ago.
Suffering and lacking teammates after the abandonment of Alaphilippe, Evenepoel was initially afraid to see his lead melting He conceded more than a minute to his main rival, the Slovenian Primoz Roglic (Jumbo), in the Andalusian mountain range of the Sierra Nevada.
The little nod to his father
But the abandonment last Tuesday of the triple title holder on the Vuelta, victim again of his audacity on a Grand Tour and of a spectacular fall when he had just exploded the peloton, opened a boulevard to Evenepoel.
Realistic, the young leader of the Quick Step did not miss the opportunity.
“My father always told me that he finished last (113th out of 114 runners at the finish of La Vuelta in 1993).
I was joking and I told him that it would be funny if I finished first […] I will enjoy it as much as I can, ”Evenepoel testified on Sunday.
In three weeks of racing, since the start in Utrecht, the Netherlands, on August 19, the hope of Belgian cycling has changed in dimension, showing maturity and a real strength of character.
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