Giro d'Italia 2023: 'They've got to learn' - Why Remco Evenepoel needs better support from Soudal-Quick Step

Published 09/05/2023 at 16:58 GMT

Taking over Remco Evenepoel’s maglia rosa was a deserved consolation prize for the very emotional Andreas Leknessund after he was denied the Stage 4 victory by France's Aurelien Paret-Peintre at the Giro d'Italia. But Evenepoel needed much more support than he got from his Soudal-Quick Step team, according to Adam Blythe, Robbie McEwen and Dan Lloyd on The Breakaway post-stage show.

'They've got to learn a lot' - Reaction to Evenepoel's Soudal-Quick Step team slipping

Soudal-Quick Step "have got to learn a lot from what happened" during Stage 4 of the Giro d'Italia if they are to give Remco Evenepoel the support he needs, according to the Eurosport experts.

Evenepoel was in possession of the maglia rosa at the start of the 175 km route from Venosa to Lago Laceno, but ended up 28 seconds down on new leader Andreas Leknessund after his team "made some mistakes" in supporting him.

Adam Blythe, Robbie McEwen and Dan Lloyd assessed what happened after the day's racing and suggested how things should now play out - both for Evenepoel and for the rival teams.

Giro d'Italia

Giro d'Italia 2024: Stage routes and start times, TV and live stream schedule

Yesterday at 16:04

"I think a lot of mistakes were made by that team, right from the get-go," Blythe said on The Breakaway post-stage show.

"You had a lot of riders committing full gas to bring a group of 14 riders back at one point. We were questioning why they were chasing it down because they were no real threat to the GC.

"Yet they were adamant about bringing it back and rode hard for at least 10, 15 minutes, then after that, more attacks came and that was in the first 20km of the stage and it went on for another 60km after that. So it was a knock-on effect and it got worse.

"I think the other teams are going to be like this [rubbing their hands together] looking at that because if they make it hard at the start as they did today, if they try to isolate Remco from his team, I'm pretty sure they will know they can do it now.

"They will look for a day with a hard start and they will play the numbers game and really put him under pressure. That is when we could see Remco really under pressure on his own for the first time."

Dan Lloyd added: "It is a bit of a worry for them. I just don't think they needed to put as much effort in at the start as they did when that group was going up the road.

"It did not have anyone particularly dangerous. I'm not quite sure why they decided to chase that down as they did.

"The even more worrying thing for me is that [Louis] Vervaeke and [Ilan] Van Wilder were getting distanced and those are two riders that I think we all thought were going to be around Remco Evenepoel until very late into the big mountain stages to come.

"Today was not a huge mountain test, so unless there is something wrong, that is a bit of a worry for them going into the final week of the race if they are defending the pink jersey and they can't stay with Remco deep into the mountain stages, and it is going to make it very tough to win this race."

Giro d'Italia Stage 4 highlights - Paret-Peintre seals inspired win from Leknessund

Robbie McEwen agreed: "They have got to take a risk and take a gamble at some point and see if it comes off. Is another rider really good enough to go on with it, go up the road and distance Remco? Do they dare going that far out?

"They [Soudal-Quick Step] are certainly not a team that traditionally has been a GC team. Even now, they are not a team you would look at and say that is the next Sky, Ineos or Jumbo-Visma.

"They are still trying to build that out around Remco, but that is going to take a bit of time to set that up and get the right riders in place.

"They made some mistakes and going on through the race, they have got to learn a lot from what happened today, be a bit more conservative and a bit more intelligent in how they go about riding."