Worries ease for injured Remco Evenepoel after trouble-free Giro d'Italia stage 6

Remco Evenepoel with a football at sign-on before stage 6 of the Giro d'Italia
Remco Evenepoel plays with a football at sign-on before stage 6 of the Giro d'Italia (Image credit: Getty Images Sport)

As Giro d'Italia contender Remco Evenepoel glided to a halt a few hundred metres after the finish of Naples, within seconds a small knot of reporters and TV had gathered around the World Champion and a protective circle of Soudal-QuickStep staff, eager to gather the first words of the Belgian after the first key test of any lasting effect of his stage 5 injuries.

The omens had been almost scarily good throughout the 162-kilometre stage through the hills surrounding Naples then back down to the seaport. Evenepoel had briefly messed around with a football, in a double nod to his sporting past and the Naples football club's historic recent league success, at the signing-on podium. Then during the entire, incident-free, stage, he never seemed to be in trouble.

Alasdair Fotheringham

Alasdair Fotheringham has been reporting on cycling since 1991. He has covered every Tour de France since 1992 bar one, as well as numerous other bike races of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Olympic Games in 2008 to the now sadly defunct Subida a Urkiola hill climb in Spain. As well as working for Cyclingnews, he has also written for The IndependentThe GuardianProCycling, The Express and Reuters.