With a Tour de France podium and an Olympic gold medal in the bag, Remco Evenepoel can be proud of what he has achieved in 2024, and thus it would hardly be a surprise for him to start thinking about 2025. But at least for now, the first big goals under discussion are a pair of major Classics that he has yet to attempt: Milan-San Remo and the Tour of Flanders.
Soudal-Quick Step team boss Patrick Lefevere unveiled Evenepoel’s expected schedule for next season in a recent interview with La Dernière Heure.
“The idea is to let him discover Milan-San Semo and the Tour of Flanders,” Lefevere said. “He will also ride either Paris-Nice or Tirreno-Adriatico. Then he will ride a race to prepare for the Tour of Flanders. That will be Dwars door Vlaanderen or the E3 Saxo Classic.”
Those spring goals will reportedly be followed by another run at the Tour de France.
Evenepoel has already compiled a very strong track record as a one-day racer in his young career, with two Liège-Bastogne-Liège wins and a world road race title to his name to go along with an impressive trio of San Sebastián victories. His big engine and strong climbing legs make him a natural fit in hilly races that reward attackers.
The 24-year-old Belgian also happens to ride for a Soudal-Quick Step team (for now at least – more on that in a moment) that has managed to go from being the dominant force in the early spring to a major disappointment there, with Evenepoel’s exploits in the Ardennes as the only saving grace for the team in the last few Classics campaigns. After looking so strong just a few seasons ago, Kasper Asgreen, Julian Alaphilippe, and Co. have come up short on the Poggio and the pavé recently.
Perhaps what the team was looking for to bring them back into the good graces of Flemish fans yearning for a Flemish team to win on home roads was under their noses all along in the form of a Flemish rider: Evenepoel. He has hardly raced on cobbles at the elite level, instead focusing his efforts on TTs, hilly one-days, and stage races since turning pro with Quick Step in 2019.
But he did have some success on the terrain as a junior, and as an elite has done well in the few cobbled races he has done, like the 2021 Brussels Cycling Classic. His 2023 Belgian road championship came on the course pictured above, which included the Kemmelberg among other climbs.
What’s more, another rider has already blazed the trail for Liège-winning Grand Tour contenders hoping to find success on the Kwaremont and the Paterberg. In 2023, Tadej Pogačar became the first former TdF winner to win the Tour of Flanders since one Eddy Merckx, who won twice in Flanders to go with his five victories at Le Tour. Evenepoel may not be a Tour de France winner but he is already a Grand Tour winner. Could he be the next stage racing star to take that step forward?
The other big question, of course, is whether Patrick Lefevere’s proclamations on Evenepoel’s 2025 campaign will even be relevant come next year, considering the ever-churning rumor mill around a possible Evenepoel transfer to Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe. The Olympic time trial champ is officially contracted with Soudal through 2026, but since at least as far back as January, rumors have swirled around Red Bull’s interest in acquiring Evenepoel – and a host of other stars.
To date, those rumors have remained just that, but a team switch could certainly change Evenepoel’s plans next year. Then again, it’s not as if Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe has an obvious leader for races like San Remo or Flanders that would compete with Evenepoel. Regardless of whose kit he is wearing next year, Evenepoel could be a real threat to add to his already excellent palmarès in some new ways in 2025.
In any case, he’ll soon have a chance to show off his bona fides as he gears up for the Olympic road race in Paris as one of two strong options for a Belgian team that also counts Wout van Aert (who has also been the subject of Red Bull transfer rumors) in its ranks. The road race course features three trips up a cobbled climb in Montmarte past the Sacre Couer basilica. It isn’t exactly the Koppenberg, but it will at least give fans a chance to see what Evenepoel can do on that sort of terrain.
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