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#1
08-03-2019, 11:30 AM
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Cycling - Remco Evenepoel
The 19 year old phenom from Flanders, Remco Evenepoel just won a one-day classic, the Classica San Sebastián in the Basque Country if Spain. This is a major World Tour race, contested by all of the top pros, with a great field.
A 19 year old winning such a race is unheard of. The kid skipped the U23 (under 23) circuit and went straight from the juniors to the pros, where ahead of schedule he’s already won the Baloise Belgium Tour and a stage of a race in Italy last week in incredible fashion, both times going to the front and simply riding the entire peloton off his wheel, but while hugely impressive, these are relatively minor races. What he won today was a big deal. I’ve been watching cycling since the 70s, summering in Belgium with my family. I’ve never seen anything like it. This kid is something to watch if you’re at all interested in the sport. Conventional wisdom would not have the team even entering him in races this big at such a young age. It will be amazing to see what he does. 
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#2
08-04-2019, 06:35 PM
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Sorry, I don't follow racing too much these days.
I follow a few riders or celebrities associated with local brands Trek & Mongoose and have ridden and/or socialized with some of them. Mostly off road riders. The talent and capability the top riders have is almost crazy. I'll hope this young guy has a long and successful career.
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ƃuoɹʍ llɐ ʇno əɯɐɔ ʇɐɥʇ
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#3
08-04-2019, 07:07 PM
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That's pretty amazing. Unfortunately I've lost a fair amount of touch with the classics since you have to buy special packages to get them in the States and for a few years I had those packages I just didn't seem to watch them enough to get my $$ worth. Was this kid a presence in the big Spring races this year? Or has his emergence been kind of sudden (which it certainly could be for a 23 year old).
Then again, a 22 year old just won the Tour de France and was a major contributor to his team's win last year at 21, also completely unheard of in the modern era. So maybe cycling or cyclists are changing...
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#4
08-05-2019, 08:26 AM
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Quote:
This was off road cycling but not too much difference regarding age. We had a nonprofit fundraiser with Trek for a movie premier where their sponsored riders were present. We've done it a few times over years. Some young starts were not yet drinking age. I also recall a press release a few years ago where the family owning Trek put $ 1 million into the scholastic racing league. For our cycling infrastructure and program fundraising I see marketing and tourism pros who care less about pedaling know the bicycling demographic so that fuels it more. Racing is not my personal thing but the young teams seem very good. I'm a director of an organization sponsoring a scholastic team. You don't just see the future stars but you also see inclusion clearly not present in the traditional scholastic sports. I'm secretly hoping it is some countering the obesity epidemic. I see kids doing life long sports not getting fat like the many of neighborhood kids who were done after high school. I hope the young stars are also good examples of people.
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ƃuoɹʍ llɐ ʇno əɯɐɔ ʇɐɥʇ
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#5
08-05-2019, 04:00 PM
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Evenepoel wasn't in the spring classics, he's so young the team was holding him out. Basically he was so good in some of the relatively minor races that they included him in the team for San Sebastian. He was incredible in the Hammer series, and won the Baloise Belgium Tour on a single stage where he broke away and rode so hard that the European time trial champion Victor Campanaerts crashed out trying to hold his wheel.
https://youtu.be/CwtXV2pUd-k?t=87 Then he did an incredible ride at the Adriatica Iona, holding off the entire peloton and dropping Fausto Masnada from the front. Nuts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo6UYoffBSU Regarding young champions, this is actually the way it used to be, before the EPO era. Merckx, Anquitel, De Vlaminck, Hinault, Fignon, Lemond...all these guys started winning very, very young. It's only in the EPO era where we started seeing fraudulent rides from dopers like Riis, Armstrong, Froome, Wiggins and others, who were also-ran riders who suddenly transformed into world-beating GT talents. Even Ullrich during that era was understood to be a huge talent from the junior ranks, and started winning immediately, but ultimately was overshadowed by Armstrong. No I'm not saying Ullrich was clean, or that any of these guys were, but EPO changed the game. Historically all the greats showed early. You don't ride for 5 years winning the occasional one-day race, or in the case of Froome and Wiggins, nothing at all, then become the rider of your generation. Ridiculous. What's nice to see is some young guys like Mattheu van der Poel, Evenepoel, Wout van Aert, and Bernal showing championship pedigree at an early age. Hopefully it's a sign that the doping has been clamped down to some degree. This year the Tour seemed super slow, and I wonder if the Tramadol ban had a lot to do with that. Sky was reputed to abuse the heck out of it.
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#6
08-05-2019, 04:06 PM
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By the way, if you didn't see Amstel Gold Race this year, it was incredible. Never seen anything like the finish.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6rA9zou0PU
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#7
08-08-2019, 11:42 AM
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Kid just won the European Time Trial Championship. Incredible.
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