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Evenepoel knows the importance of a time-trial at a Grand Tour all too well and has set his sights on victory in Stage 10, as he looks to move up the general classification and win back-to-back La Vuelta titles.
The Belgian will ride in the coveted rainbow jersey on Tuesday (AEST) after taking out the time-trial at the UCI Cycling World Championships in Glasgow early last month, which he claims will push him to get the better of his GC rivals and follow up his crash-marred victory from Stage 3.
"The rainbow jersey will give me extra motivation and hopefully a few extra watts,” he said ahead of Stage 10.
“My goal is to win the time trial and take a second stage win. A time trial is always important in Grand Tours and we’ll see the time gaps after the rides. In principle, the time trial should suit me the best of all classification riders, so it'd be nice if I could take say half a minute.
“That is a high ambition because (Juan) Ayuso, (Jonas) Vingegaard and (Primoz) Roglič are also in shape. Just look at the time trials in the recent Grand Tours: Jonas Vingegaard won the time trial in the Tour in the yellow jersey and last year I won in the red jersey at the Vuelta in the red jersey.”
Currently sitting fourth overall after relinquishing the red jersey on Stage 6, Evenepoel could use Tuesday's 25.8km time trial around Valladolid to pull back significant time on race leader Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma) as well as gain some valuable seconds on fellow red jersey hopefuls Roglic and Vingegaard.
The Belgian weighed in on who out of the trio Jumbo-Visma will deploy for race honours, and said that getting the better of Kuss, Roglic and Vingegaard would be no easy task, especially knowing the latter two's prowess against the clock.
“Sepp is considered one of the best climbers in the world. If he does a good time trial tomorrow, he’ll be an important client to beat. But we also saw him getting into trouble in the last two mountain stages. Personally, I see Kuss more as an outsider at Jumbo,” Evenepoel said.
“I think they’re still going for Roglič and Vingegaard but for sure it’s not easy to go against three strong climbers and Grand Tour racers,” Evenepoel added.
“It’s not an easy task to come up with plans to try to beat them, especially if they work well together. We have to deal with it and manage it well. I’m first of the top favourites but it’s difficult to say who is above another because we’re close on time for the moment, despite some difficult stages."
A solution to overcoming the Jumbo triumvirate could be an alliance with Juan Ayuso and Joao Almeida of UAE Team Emirates as well as Enric Mas of Movistar, as all are still well placed overall with strong teams to support them.
“They can become very important in my upcoming two weeks because it's easier to work together than solve all the problems yourself. It’d be good to try to work together,” Evenepoel suggested, casting a suggestion out to his rivals but allies against the strength of Jumbo-Visma.
“Jumbo have three guys and we have to find a way to work against them. It’s not easy because they’re super strong. We’ll see how the GC is after the time trial and then after stage 13 to the Col du Tourmalet and stage 14 to the top of the Belagua.
“A Grand Tour is three weeks long, it’s not about the first week, it’s about how you get through it and how you recover from the first week. And then it's day by day until stage 21. There’s still a long way to go…”
The second week of La Vuelta kicks off tonight with an individual time trial around Valladolid. Watch the action LIVE from 10:50pm AEST on SBS VICELAND and SBS On Demand.
