THE REMCO EFFECT
At the Slovenian hotel, Matej Mohoric prepared for the team press conference as Remco Evenepoel demolished the field in the junior road race. Two days earlier, Evenepoel had won the 27.7km junior time trial at a speed more than 2km/h faster than second-placed Lucas Plapp from Australia. The Belgian media had reached for its most precious – and heaviest – appellation: the next Eddy Merckx. Now, the ex-footballer who’d played for Anderlecht, PSV Eindhoven and Belgium as a junior was stomping away from Marius Mayrhofer, the German, on the final ascent of the Olympia climb. He won by 1:25 – an extraordinary gap made gobsmacking by the fact he’d overturned a two-minute deficit incurred after a mass crash at 72km to go.
In 2012, in Valkenburg, Mohoric won the junior road race and came second in the time trial. From a different, less cycling-mad nation and a lesser level of domination, but still, if anyone knows what it feels like to be touted as a champion-in-waiting, it is the Slovenian. Folded into a cramped restaurant booth, Mohoric admitted Evenepoel had been “even more sensational” and “way more talented” than he had been as a junior. The now 24-yearold Bahrain-Merida rider said his wins back then were built on tactics; Evenepoel’s were built on brute force.
“Nevertheless I think he should be aware that when you go from the juniors to the professional level it’s a completely different world,” he said. “It’s almost a different sport, actually. The junior races test strength and the short efforts. The pro races – not all the races, but the biggest races – will test endurance and it’s for a completely different type of rider, a completely different type of muscle fibre. It’s all different.”
Mohoric won the U23 Worlds road race in 2013 and joined Cannondale the following season. Yet he only took his first professional victory at the end of 2016. Time with Mohoric feels like time spent with an old soul. “I thought I was prepared, but when I did the first WorldTour races I was quite impressed with the level,” he said with an enigmatic smile.
“Obviously, with age being a big factor in men’s endurance it will not help an 18-year-old guy, so he should be aware of that and should not give up,” said Mohoric. “He’s probably going to be dropped at some point next year – not in all races, and in short races he’s probably going to be very competitive – but I think in some longer races he’s going to suffer a lot. The best advice is to not give up, keep trying, keep training, keep putting in the kilometres and training the diesel part of his engine a bit more. But for sure he’s got a bright future ahead of him,” Mohoric said.
Evenepoel will skip the U23 ranks and join Quick-Step Floors next year, a deal that was announced well before the Worlds, in July, following his back-to-back wins in the road race and TT at the junior European Championships. He will be the first rider born this millennium to enter the WorldTour. He probably will not be raced that much much, but still, Belgium will follow Evenepoel’s progress with rapt attention.