'Always calm and no stupid moves' - Evenepoel takes control at UAE Tour

Remco Evenepoel may have had to give up his rainbow jersey for a different coloured maillot on stage 3 of the UAE Tour, but the world champion seemed anything but concerned afterwards at the loss.

Even if the music of a local military band at the summit of Jebel Jais came close to drowning out his words in his first press conference as leader of the UAE Tour, the bright red jersey he had just captured was as unmissable as la roja of he wore all the way to Madrid at last year’s Vuelta a España.

Despite his rise to the GC lead, Evenepoel’s ascent of the interminable slopes of Jebel Jais did not go completely to plan, as teammates Pieter Serry and Louis Vervaeke both punctured just before they were about to up the pace in the peloton in a bid to reel in late breakaway Einer Rubio (Movistar).

But despite the setback, Evenepoel put his rarely-seen sprint talents on full display at the summit of Jebel Jais to snatch second place behind Rubio, opening up a time gap of a second on the chasing peloton and blasting into top spot overall.

Now clad in the leader’s red jersey but with the rainbow stripes still prominent on his cap and trainers, Evenepoel recognised that his sprinting was not something that he often worked on, but that it had certainly proved handy on Wednesday in the unlikely setting of a summit finish.

“I’m not that explosive but each year I get stronger and a bit more explosive and it came out today,” Evenepoel said.  “Even in some team training camps I can beat some fast punchers in the sprints, so it’s not that I’m very slow. Of course, it's not my main goal to work on it, and it’s not my strongest point for sure, but it's nice to have a good sprint.”

Evenepoel had come into the UAE Tour saying that he would be aiming for the podium, but the bar has now clearly been raised. A change of leader is unlikely in the three sprint days ahead of Sunday’s mountaintop finale. For Evenepoel, of course, the sprint that mattered the most came atop of Jebel Jais.

“Of course, this was a climb that suited me, it’s like a time trial actually, always big power,” he admitted. “I surprised myself with that nice advantage in the sprint, and it shows that I still can make a powerful move in the last metres of a race.

“I was thinking about maybe going a bit earlier but I knew there was a headwind in the last 400 to 500 metres, so I had to be smart and wait for the last big punch. That tactic paid off today.”

Lessons

After winning with Tim Merlier on Monday’s small bunch sprint and again on Tuesday in the TTT, Evenepoel fell just short of completing a hat-trick for Soudal-QuickStep, with the punctures of Serry and Vervaeke not helping his cause.

“But I think the guy that won really deserved it because to stay away on this climb was not easy,” Evenepoel said. “So hats off to him. I just heard now that it’s his birthday today, so I will go to his table tonight to get a piece of cake.”

After his major overestimation of his strength on the Alto Colorado ascent at the Vuelta a San Juan in January cost him all hope of overall success, Evenepoel said that he had learned from the mistake. “The big lesson from Argentina was to wait for the last few hundred metres and focus on the last attack,” he said. “I think that worked quite well today, I was always calm and no stupid moves.”

Rather than relying too much on pre-planned strategies, Evenepoel had to lean on his instincts on stage 3 after his power meter failed to work for the entire day, and that perhaps explained his more cautious approach to the climb as well.

“It was all on sensations and that proves I’m not always looking at my power meter,” Evenepoel joked. “Maybe I should throw it away, that would save a few grams as well.”

Although Sunday’s finale is nominally tougher than Jebel Jais, Evenepoel said he’d taken away some encouraging lessons from stage 3.

“Jebel Hafeet is a different climb, it’s a bit steeper, so the effort will be a bit shorter, and that all means that we will push that much harder,” said Evenepoel, who noted, too, that he had been quicker in the sprint than dangerman Pello Bilbao, currently third overall at 11 seconds.

“He’s a fast finisher so to leave him behind is a good sign,” Evenepoel said. “So that means for Sunday I can maybe also focus on the last 400 metres of the climb, too, that part with a short descent and a sharp corner.

“But of course I will have to follow the guys if they go and seven seconds advantage on GC is not a lot.”

Yet for all his heightened confidence, Evenepoel did not show any signs of complacency, in any case, about his rivals in the remaining four stages of the race. The UAE Tour is not even at its halfway point and Monday’s echelon-fest showed clearly how quickly the applecart can be upset if there are even slight winds on such exposed terrain.

Furthermore, the risk of crashes is always present, as Evenepoel knows only too well from his previous UAE participation back in 2019 when he fell and abandoned on stage 4. Evenepoel may be winning then, but the game is far from over.

“I think Bilbao is a bit better than Plapp on the steep climbs, but of course we can never forget about Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates),” Evenepoel pointed out.

“Don’t forget that on Jebel Hafeet [in 2020] Yates won with an advantage of over 1 minute on Tadej Pogacar, so if he has a good day he can try to blow the race apart.

“But maybe UAE will focus more on the stage win that day, you never know. In any case, it's better to be ahead than behind like I am now, but I’m expecting all the good GC guys to be there on Sunday. I'll just have to believe in myself and in my legs as well.”