There were no last-minute upsets at the Kristallen Fiets - Crystal Bicycle - awards this year as Lotte Kopecky was voted best female Belgian rider for the fifth time in her career, while Remco Evenepoel received the same honour in his category for a fourth time as well.
Neither star name was present in the glitzy mid-week ceremony in the Belgian town of Kruisen. Evenepoel has gone down with a bad fever just days after finishing second in his last race of the season, Il Lombardia, and was too ill to attend, while Kopecky is currently en route to the Track World Championships in Denmark.
However, Evenepoel did not beat around the bush in a pre-event interview for Het Laatste Nieuws, the newspaper organising the awards ceremony, saying the successes in his season had given him plenty of grounds to think he was in line for a third straight Kristallen Fiets.
"With what I've achieved this season, with my two gold medals in the Olympics, my podium finish in the Tour and stage victory there - yes, I did expect this, I thought I deserved to be number one," Evenepoel said, with team boss Patrick Lefevere accepting the award in person on his behalf.
Apologizing for his absence, he added, "I would have liked to have been there with you all, but I am feeling too ill."
A team get-together next week will likely establish a much more definitive race program for 2025 for Evenepoel, but he said he was keen to make a return to Paris-Nice and implied that a return to the Giro d'Italia was not ruled out, either.
Regarding Paris-Nice, "I'd like there to be an individual time trial rather than a team TT" - as has been the case in the Course au Soleil for the last two years - and as for the Giro, "it'll all depend on the route, which should be revealed soon. But if I like the Tour de France route, my mind should be made up soon, because my podium there made me hungry for more."
The 2025 Tour de France route presentation - for both men's and women's races - is due to take place on October 29, while the Giro d'Italia's equivalent event is set to take place on November 12.
Kopecky was also asked by Het Laatste Nieuws about her future plans, but the 2024 Road World Champion and Paris-Roubaix winner was adamant, too, that "If I can say one thing about next season, it is that it really cannot be better than this year. But I will do everything I can to try to reach the same level of fitness."
"It is very difficult to pick one moment from this season, but I had been chasing that victory in Paris-Roubaix for a long time and the fact that I could win it wearing a beautiful rainbow jersey was the cherry on the top."
Evenepoel was the clear winner in his category, amassing 984 votes compared to 530 for closest runner-up Tim Merlier and 460 for Jasper Philipsen. His total of four Kristallen Fiets awards is now one short of the all-time record, held by Classics great Johan Museeuw. Kopecky meanwhile, was already the record-holder in her category, with her new, increased, tally of five awards once again underlining her status as the top Belgian racer of her generation.
In other awards handed out on Tuesday night's ceremony, Fleur Moors (Lidl-Trek) and Jarno Widar (Lotto-Dstny Development Team) won the respective Kristallen Fiets junior categories and Justine Ghekiere (AG Insurance-Soudal), who conquered a stage of the Tour de France Femmes this summer, was declared best teammate - the first ever female winner of the award. Sven Vanthourenhout - the Belgian National Team Coach until he left the post after the Zürich World Championships - received the award as best sports director.
