La Vuelta 2022: The impulsive Remco Evenepoel is no more – Primoz Roglic should be terrified

It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it
And that’s what gets results
– Bananarama and the Fun Boy Three

Was it really little more than a year ago that Remco Evenepoel was criticised by many of his fellow Belgians, including team-mates and Eddy Merckx, for the way he rode the Olympic road race?

“I think that it’s not the smartest attack I’ve done in my life”, Evenepoel admitted of the move he made 50km from the finish, which saw him blow up and of no use to co-leader Wout van Aert in the finale.

Is it really less than a year since Evenepoel ignored the home team’s plan, and turned animator of the elite men’s World Championship road race in Flanders?

“I did not understand why Remco attacked 180km from the finish when he had to be at my side with Jasper Stuyven in the final,” said Wout van Aert, after seeing Remco’s trade team-mate Julian Alaphilippe ride away to his second set of rainbow bands.

After the way he rode this afternoon in the Basque Country, it’s hard to imagine Evenepoel doing the same thing today. Physically, though unquestionably a year stronger, he is the same rider. Psychologically, though, the difference is night and day.

No, we are not comparing like with like. In both the Worlds and the Olympics he was tasked with riding for someone else. Today the goal was to put himself on the podium.

To an extent, sure.

Even though Evenepoel, in becoming the youngest rider to wear the Vuelta leader’s jersey in 34 years, claimed no modest amount of individual glory, and took a massive step on in his personal career, he did so in such a way as to demonstrate he understood he was riding for something bigger.

His performance on the Pico Jano was one of strength and power, but it also demonstrated a degree of maturity and discipline that it is hard to imagine coming from him a year ago.

Enric Mas, though talented and strong, does not play at Remco’s level. It’s hard to believe that he could not have ridden the Movistar rider off his wheel, if he’d wanted to, and then sprinted for the line. The stage win and the maillot rojo were well within his grasp.

But at what cost?

A Grand Tour really is a marathon not a sprint. Although physiologically it’s far from simple, in one way or another every gram of resource a rider expends will take something out of them now that will not be there later. That might be later in the same stage, it might be tomorrow, or it might be in two weeks’ time.

Today’s team goal for Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl was to put Evenepoel in red. He knew that as well as the rest of them did. That’s why Julian Alaphilippe began the task of detonating discharges in the peloton as they approached the summit of the penultimate climb.

It’s why Evenepoel did enough and no more than enough to achieve the collective aim.

This is a team that has little to no experience of targeting the general classification of a Grand Tour. That which they have, they acquired almost accidentally, with Joao Almeida at the 2020 Giro d’Italia.

What’s different is Remco. What has convinced them to do otherwise – whether explicitly, or with his talent – is Remco.

It would be interesting to learn what Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl DS Davide Brammati was instructing Evenepoel to do over the radio as today’s stage reached its denouement. Maybe he didn’t have to say anything at all. If he did, we can be sure that the rider listened. A year ago he might not have.

I thought I was smart but I soon found out
I didn’t know what life was all about
But then I learned I must confess
That life is like a game of chess

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