World Champion Remco Evenepoel makes his 2023 return to European racing Monday at the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya in what he confirmed would be, more than anything else, a major test-run for the Giro d’Italia.
Although Evenepoel will make the briefest of incursions into the Belgian Classics to defend his title at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Catalunya will be his last stage race prior to heading to Italy for the Giro start on May 6th.
The Belgian sounded quietly confident in a press conference on Sunday afternoon, with his morale boosted by his victory three weeks ago in the UAE Tour and a fortnight of altitude training.
Looking ahead to the Giro, “the biggest difference between 90 percent and 100 percent is to get that last small bit of weight down,” Evenepoel said. “But power-wise everything is good, probably better than expected.”
Evenepoel has never raced the Volta a Catalunya before, where he will be taking on Giro rivals of the calibre of Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers), João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) and, above all, Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma).
Other top names taking part in the Volta include Giro defending champion Jai Hindley (Bora-Hansgrohe), Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers), Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) and Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates), although these four are all aiming at the Tour de France, rather than the Giro, so may not yet be so close to their top form.
The Belgian star recognised that in any case the Volta, which he had hoped to tackle in 2020 before the pandemic caused its cancellation, constituted the ideal opportunity to gain reference points prior to making his return to the Giro in May.
“I’m really happy I can take the start here, we’ve already checked out Monday’s finish,” Evenepoel told reporters. “Overall it looks like a hard race, it’s a perfect simulation of the last week of the Giro, so it can be a big test for all our team.
“Lots of people will be in form here, so I hope to take things step by step and progress. It’s a second test after my first test in the UAE Tour, which went really well:
“My form is better than it was a month ago, so I should be up there with the others.”
On paper, the Volta is usually decided in its two or three Pyrenean stages mid-way through the week. But the events of last year, when Richard Carapaz and Sergio Higuita completely upended the overall on a seemingly inoffensive transition stage, ousting Almeida from what seemed like an impregnable lead, proved that that is not always the case.
This year the GC looks set to be undecided at least until stage 5, when after the Pyrenees the Volta makes a rare but welcome visit to one of the toughest climbs in south Catalunya, Lo Port. And as Evenepoel warned, with three summit finishes in the space of four days, there are plenty of opportunities for the climbers and tactics are not so straightforward as they might seem.
“In a week-long race, if you have a chance to take time, you never can hesitate, you always have to go for it,” Evenepoel told reporters, and indeed at the UAE Tour, much of his winning time gap was gained thanks to making sure he was on the front in the echelons of stage 1.
“But there are some hard days, too, so it's always easy to give a punch and get two punches back. We might be careful with big efforts in the first day, but with three mountain top finishes, those days are big opportunities. However, I won’t be the only one thinking like that, it'll be decided the legs and freshness towards the end of the week.”
During his training camp in the Canaries, Evenepoel recently set a new record on Strava for the western ascent of the Teide volcano in Tenerife on Monday. But he did not get overly enthusiastic about its significance.
"It doesn't mean anything, it was just exercises we had to do in training and by accident I took the fastest time. It's nothing that will change a rider's career," he concluded. "I didn't even know until afterwards, I didn't want to go for it or anything like that."
The training camp, he said, "was quite intense, a lot of hard training, so I will need to wait and see what the legs will say in the next two weeks, because when you work that hard you can have some 'bad answers' during a race.
"But the opposite works, sometimes, as well, I often come back from altitude camp in good shape so I hope that's going to be the case here because I will need some good shape to try and have good results here.
"So the goal is pretty clear: a stage win and a podium."
Although going for the overall victory was not ruled out, he said, "with a result like that we can be happy that we're doing some good work towards the Giro."
But although the main focus of the Volta may be, from the media and fans point of view, on how Evenepoel fares against Roglič, he pointed out that there was plenty of other opposition at the race.
"There are many more [other top contenders] I think", he said. "For sure Primož is one of the best Grand Tour riders in the bunch so he'll always be a favourite when he starts, but I think the UAE Tour will be very strong here and in the Giro.
"It's not only Primož and myself, there are 10 or 15 guys who can go for the win here."
As for his squad's overall condition, Evenepoel said that they were "as strong as the team we had in the Vuelta a España, so I'm very confident."
"I have no doubts about them, I have full confidence in myself and them and we're ready to try and compete with the best GC teams out there."
There’s no getting away from the fact, either, that if Evenepoel’s condition is, as he says, much better than it was in the UAE Tour - where he was already in great form - the field is considerably deeper than it was in the Middle Eastern WorldTour race, too.
Come what may, Evenepoel will be hoping to use the Volta as a stepping stone for May, and as he put it, all of the foundation work has been done for the Giro.
“My power numbers are very good and I’m slowly getting towards my Grand Tour weight. There's not much work on that, but the biggest difference between 90 percent and 100 percent is to get that last small bit of weight down.
"But it's a matter of time. I’ve still got a few more weeks in altitude after this but power wise everything is good, probably better than expected. It’s all about fine tuning now.”
