Remco Evenepoel targets Tour de France, says 'pain is getting less and less' after frightening crash

Updated 19/04/2024 at 18:04 GMT

A frightening incident at the Itzulia Basque Country earlier in April saw Remco Evenepoel break a collarbone and shoulder blade as several riders suffered serious injuries. Speaking publicly for the first time since then, Evenepoel said that his recovery is going well and was optimistic of recovering in time for a summer featuring the Tour de France and Paris Olympics.

Watch highlights as Evenepoel sprints to win Stage 8 of Paris-Nice, as Jorgenson takes GC

Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) says his pain is "getting less and less" following his heavy crash at the Itzulia Basque Country and that he hopes to be back ahead of the Tour de France.

The two-time world champion suffered a broken collarbone and shoulder blade in a dramatic Stage 4 earlier in April that saw several high-profile riders go down.

Two-time Tour de France winner Jonas Vingegaard (Visma–Lease a Bike) also suffered serious injuries as the race was neutralised, but was released from hospital this week.

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Soudal Quick-Step rider Evenepoel spoke on his team’s official podcast ‘The Wolfpack Howls’ to issue an update on his recovery.

“I can’t complain," Evenepoel said. "Every day I feel that the body is improving and that the pain is getting less and less.

“I'm pretty relaxed and I’m trying to enjoy things, it's kind of my mid-season break. I hope after the weekend, I can start to build up again, on the bike, off the bike and get back into the pro cycling life.”

He added: “The first few days after such a fall you can do something crazy in terms of nutrition. For the time being, I’m not really on a diet either, because I know my body needs a lot of calcium right now.

“Calcium, milk, yogurt and cheese, for example. Ice creams too, actually. It is a staple food. The rehabilitation is basically eating ice cream.”

Evenepoel’s injury cast his involvement at the 2024 Tour de France and Paris Olympics into doubt, but the Belgian is hopeful about returning in time for both.

However, he will be forced to sit out Liege-Bastogne-Liege in his home country, the race he has won for the last two years.

“I'm lucky that with my injuries, everything is quite stable, I haven’t lost too much fitness and that I can restart pretty quickly. That is a bit of luck I had in the bad luck,” Evenepoel added.

“I know I still have a lot of work to do, I need to improve my form quite a bit but I felt good at Paris-Nice and then Basque, I felt I was on schedule.

“In the weeks to come, it'll be the same altitude camp, then everything will depend on my form and I’ll choose between the Criterium du Dauphine or the Tour de Suisse.

“Then it's time for the Tour already, so it's going to come pretty fast.”

The Tour de France starts on June 29 and runs until July 21, while the Paris Olympics take place between July 26 and August 11.

Jonas Vignegaard und Remco Evenepoel

Image credit: Getty Images

Evenepoel, who also suffered a serious crash at Il Lombardia in 2020 that required a long rehabilitation process, was not the only rider to go down in the Basque Country.

Several riders were involved in a crash on a descent with 35km to go including Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates), Natnael Tesfatsion (Lidl-Trek), Steff Cras (TotalEnergies), Alexander Cepeda and Sean Quinn (EF Education-EasyPost).

The three former Grand Tour winners Evenepoel, Vingegaard and Primoz Roglic (Bora–Hansgrohe) were the highest-profile names to go down, and the Belgian reflected on the incident.

“If you look closely at the movement of my bike, you can see that I took the wrong line, that it was on the bumpy side of the road and I just didn't have control of my bike anymore,” he said.

“Then I just hit the bumps and I didn't have control of my bike. I checked my file, we were going at 81kph in the corner. In slow motion, it all looks easy to control but then when you see the helicopter shots, you really see how fast I went into the forest and onto the grass.

“Afterwards it's always easy to say that I should have been able to keep it up on the corner but everything was so quick and so fast that before I knew it, I was sitting up and holding my shoulder.

“I'm just happy that all the riders are doing okay, if we can say that. My injuries are actually minor injuries compared to some other guys.”

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Itzulia Basque Country