Remco Evenepoel

The son of the former professional cyclist Patrick Evenepoel, Remco Evenepoel started his sporting career as a football player. At the age of five he joined Anderlecht. When he was eleven years old he changed to the youth academy of PSV Eindhoven returning to Anderlecht again at the age of fourteen. He played four times for the Belgium team U15 and five times for the Belgium U16. After some setbacks and disappointments he made a switch to cycling in 2017. He won both the time trial and road race at the 2018 European Junior Road Cycling Championships. The gap between him and the second place rider in the road race was 9 minutes and 44 seconds.[4][5]

Later in the year, Evenepoel also won both the road race and the time trial at the UCI Junior Road World Championships.[6]

Electing to skip the under-23 ranks, Evenepoel announced in July 2018 that he would join Deceuninck–Quick-Step for the 2019 season.[7] For his first season, Evenepoel was scheduled to compete in shorter stage races, and skipped the cobbled, one-day Classic races.[8][9] In his debut race, the Vuelta a San Juan, Evenepoel won the young rider classification and 9th overall whilst also winning his first professional podium in the stage 3 time trial behind teammate Julian Alaphilippe and Valerio Conti.[10] Evenepoel's first professional victory came at the Tour of Belgium, where he won the general classification as well as a stage and the points classification.[11] On 3 August 2019 Evenepoel scored his first World Tour victory when he won the Clasica de San Sebastian. He escaped from the field, accompanied by Toms Skujinš about 20 km (12 mi) from the finish, dropping his companion on the last hill and soloing to victory.[12] He became the third-youngest rider ever to win a cycling classic in the history of the sport.[13] On 8 August 2019, Evenepoel won the time trial at the 2019 European Road Championships.[14] At the World Championships in September, Evenepoel would have been eligible to still ride in the under-23 category, but decided against it and started in the elite men's events.[15] He went on to win the silver medal in the time trial.[16] He spent much of the year sharing a room with Phillipe Gilbert who acted in a mentoring role.[17]

Evenepoel started the 2020 season at the Vuelta a San Juan, where he won the individual time trial on stage 3 and the general classification.[18] He then competed at the Volta ao Algarve. Here, he won stage 2 as well as the final stage, a time trial, to clinch overall victory ahead of Maximilian Schachmann.[19]