Patrick Lefevere hints at Tour de France debut for Remco Evenepoel in 2024 as Grand Tour finishes in Nice

QuickStep-AlphaVinyl team manager Patrick Lefevere has suggested Remco Evenepoel will make his Tour de France debut in 2024.

“It’s nice to see the Tour finish with a time trial,” Lefevere told Belgian newspaper La Derniere Heure.

“That can lead to some nice scenarios, we all remember Greg LeMond and Laurent Fignon in 1989 and this could be spectacular too.

“A time trial for Remco is good. But it all depends where he’d be lying overall at that point.

“Will Remco Evenepoel be at the 2024 Tour de France? It’s obviously too soon to say. But our plan with him has always been that he should do the Vuelta and Giro before the Tour. Given how he’s raced in the Vuelta this year, and how he’ll do the Giro next, I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about 2024.”

The 2023 Tour de France includes just 22km of time trialling and looks set to favour climbers for the general classification.

Evenepoel has been in Italy recently doing some preparation work ahead of the Giro.

He is likely to be one of the favourites for the race, although it is not known who else will be there.

“That’s what I was thinking anyway,” Thomas told CyclingNews last month.

“The Giro is a lot less intense – just the atmosphere and everything. I’d like to ride it another time.

“It’s a race I’ve always enjoyed, even if I’ve crashed out the last two times I’ve done it. It would be nice to go back and finish it.”

Thomas has failed to finish the Giro in his last two starts in 2017 and 2020, suffering injuries on both occasions after crashes.

“There is a bit of [‘what might have been’],” he said. “In 2020 I felt in really good shape. Even one before that with the motorbike parked on the road… I really would have loved to have seen how I’d have done.”