«Football promise, now I’m giving a show on my bike»- Corriere.it

When I played football I dreamed of scoring immediately after the kick-off or even starting on the counterattack from midfield. A football match is beautiful because it is unpredictable from the very first minute. Now I’m looking for the same effect in cycling races where you’d expect twists and turns at the end, after hours of perhaps monotonous racing. By character I get bored easily, I like to anticipate, surprise, amaze. Maybe even a little thanks to me, to Van Der Poel, Van Aert and Pogacar that cycling is becoming as cool and chic as football.

Remco Evenepoel, in five months, at just 22 years of age, she won Liège-Bastogne-Liege, the Vuelta and the World Championship. Did you expect such a loot?

No, especially after the accident at the Giro di Lombardia 2020 in which I risked my neck.

Until the age of 17 you were considered a football phenomenon, disputed between Anderlecht and PSV, captain of the Belgian youth national team. Why did she stop suddenly?

I had started early, when I was 4: I liked football a lot and I could have become an excellent professional. But I didn’t like the environment, the way too much money, the prosecutors. When everything became unbearable for me, I gave up. I wanted to change sport, cycling arrived.

She is also asked for a show here at the UAE Tour at the start in the Emirates. Van Aert and Van Der Poel have dueled like gladiators all winter in cyclo-cross, Pogacar in Spain is stunning as he wins hands down. a cycling that leaves you breathless.

Pogacar has raised the bar a lot. We are all called to answer: the fans are now used to strong emotions and no one can hold back.

Rocket starts, continuous twists. You won Liège after 30 kilometers of solitary escape and the World Championship after 25. Aren’t these ways and rhythms excessive?

Perhaps. Certainly tiring. But the attention of the public is very high, the racing is super attractive. And if you want to make it on TV today, you have to offer continuous entertainment.

By winning the Vuelta he showed that he can also do it in a stage race.

In Spain it was a struggle. Manage yourself for three weeks, from tactics in the food race, to very difficult sleep for an instinctive like me.

Then we took the World Cup in Australia.

And that shirt changed my life in a way I couldn’t imagine.

Why?

Because no sports champion carries around the trophy he has conquered every day. I leave the house in the morning with it, in Belgium or Spain where I live, and I keep it on for the five or six hours of training. When they see the rainbow jersey, people stop, applaud, run after me, cheer me on. It doesn’t bore me, on the contrary it multiplies my strength.

On May 6, the Giro d’Italia awaits her, where she will be the absolute star.

I’m looking forward to it – the main focus of my season. I played it two years ago, immature and inexperienced. Victory at the Vuelta made me realize I could do well here too and brought back to Belgium a Grand Tour that we hadn’t won in decades. In recent months I have done meticulous reconnaissance on the routes of the first ten days, beautiful but full of pitfalls. The time trial in Abruzzo, Fossombrone, Naples. On big climbs you will need your legs above all, but at the start you have to be careful of everything. I don’t know if I’ll win, I know I want to make a good impression.

He’s learning Italian, isn’t he?

I’m trying, I love languages, I love being able to use them when I travel. I speak Flemish, French (perfect, ed), English and Spanish. The real challenge is learning Arabic, the language of my wife Oumi’s parents. At the moment I am able to compliment my mother-in-law on the way she prepares couscous, my favorite dish. But I can improve a lot, I never leave things half done.