Fresh off his Olympic time trial champion title and podium finish at the Tour de France, Lemko Evenpoel is expected to make his highly anticipated debut at both Milan-San Remo and the Tour of Flanders in 2025.

Soudal-QuickStep team manager Patrick Lefebvre explained in an interview with Dernière Heure that Evenpoel will be participating in the biggest one-day races in Italy and Belgium next spring.

In contrast to 2024, the only one-day race for Evenpoel is the Figuiera Champions Classic in February.

Lefevere told Dernière Heure that the 24-year-old Evenpoel plans to run the Flanders Cobbled Classics in addition to Flanders. Evenpoel will also return to the Liège-Bastogne-Liège, which he won consecutively in 2022 and 2023, but was forced to miss the 2024 Ardennes Monument after falling in Ituria, Basque Country, in early April and breaking his collarbone. [It means Lemko will discover Milan-San Remo and the Tour de France. He will probably ride Paris-Nice or Tirreno-Adriatico and the Flanders Classics in preparation for Flanders." Dwars door Fländelen or E3 Harelbæk. Then Liège - Bastogne - back to Liège".

Lefebvre also confirmed that, unsurprisingly, Evenpoel's 2025 plans include a return to the Tour de France, where he finished third overall in his debut race and took a stage win and overall victory in the Best Young Riders class. in 2021 and 2023. The possibility of a return to the Giro d'Italia in 2025, in which Evenpoel competed, was almost certainly ruled out.

Except for a brief stint in the Belgian cobbled spring classics in his debut pro season in 2019, and appearances in the Nokelle Coase and Bredene Koksije classics, both finishing in the main group, to date Evenpoel has never competed in a single one-day event in Flanders He has never competed in a one-day event in Flanders.

For the dedicated Belgian cycling community, his return is a welcome one, especially after such a brilliant success.

When asked what he thought of Evenpoel's potential for further improvement, Lefebvre laughed and replied, "I think it's a good thing. He's already won two Monuments and a Grand Tour and is a two-time (elite) world champion."

"He was leading at the Giro d'Italia (2023) but collapsed in COVID. He was on the podium at the Tour de France and won the best young rider jersey. And now he's an Olympic champion, too, at age 24.

"Our goal was for him to be on the podium in the 2025 Tour. And even if Tadej Pogachar and Jonas Vingegaard were in the peloton, who's to say he wouldn't win it outright?"

"The future is unpredictable. Look at Jan Ullrich and Egan Bernal, both of whom were predicted to win the Tour five times each and ended up not being able to. I'm not wishing Pogachar an injury, I just hope Lemko has already had some bad luck."

As for what is left in 2024, Lefebvre told Dernière Heure that the races confirmed in Evenpole's current program are the Olympics, the World Championships, and possibly a warm-up event in Zurich The Tour of Great Britain (Sept. 3-9), which will be held as a warm-up for the 2021 Giro d'Italia, is the only race on Evenpohl's tentative late 2024 season program, as neither Il Lombardia, where he crashed badly in 2020, nor the World Cup in Canada are not included in the program.

Lefebvre argued that Evenpoel could win every race except Paris-Roubaix, but also noted that history could favor Evenpoel in the toughest classic races. He cited the case of Belgian cycling star Frank Vandenbrouck (deceased), "In 1999, it took the entire Mapei Quickstep team to chase him down to stop him from winning the Hell of the North. So ......."

Finally, Lefebvre was asked if he had anything to say to the Belgian team that is trying to pull Evenpoel out of the team, and he discussed the ongoing rumors surrounding Evenpoel and his future at Sourdal Quickstep. [But Lemko is under contract until the end of 2026. Whoever wants to sign him knows how much he will cost. In any case, I am sure there is a team out there that can offer him better terms than our team. I'm not talking about money, I'm talking about his health. If we (as a team) are garbage, why do the big name teams keep trying to sign our management?"

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