‘I won’t risk my life for it but I’m going to go for it’ – Remco Evenepoel back to winning ways and two seconds off race lead at Tour of Britain Men

by September 6, 2025

written by September 6, 2025

It was windy stop The Tumble in south Wales on Saturday afternoon. Windy enough to prevent any long-range attacks from sticking, and to blow any unsecured Geraint Thomas face masks away, but not enough to disturb the nascent moustache on Remco Evenepoel‘s top lip, despite the breeze hitting him full in the face as he sprinted to victory.

The moustache might be barely there on the Soudal Quick-Step rider’s face, but the confidence is rowing once again for the Belgian, after a season of ups and downs, a familiar story by now. The win on stage five of the Tour of Britain Men was just the Olympic champion’s second road race win of 2025, after Brabantse Pijl, although there have been four time trial triumphs, including at the Tour de France.

Evenepoel’s year started slowly, after he was hit by the driver of a Belgian post van in December, not returning to racing until Brabantse Pijl, which he duly won. Time trial wins at the Tour de Romandie and Critérium du Dauphiné and top fives on general classification followed, before he won stage five of the Tour de France in Caen. However, the Belgian then left that race early, on stage 14, before it was announced that he would be leaving his Soudal Quick-Step contract early for Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe next year. The Tour of Britain is his first race back since that news broke, and one of his last in his current team’s jersey.

“It was difficult, the headwind was pretty strong after the last 3km, in the forest we didn’t really feel the wind, but once we got over the cattle grid it was pretty windy,” he said of stage five. “That made it a bit tactical in the end, we tried on the first time up the climb to go really hard from the bottom, but we felt with 3km to go that the wind was too strong to really tear things apart.

“That [his sprint] feels really good, especially with the headwind. I went from far away, from 200m, I was a bit worried that the guys would come over me, but I my sprint was strong enough to keep it to the line,” Evenepoel said. “With winning the sprint today, maybe it’s a bit of a shame of my mechanical yesterday because it would have been a bit different, especially in terms of GC, but in the end that’s cycling, and we have to look to tomorrow and enjoy this one.”

Evenepoel had a gear-issue on stage four, preventing him from taking advantage of a promising situation, which Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ) won. However, after the penultimate day, Evenepoel is just two seconds off the Frenchman, and it will all come down to Cardiff on Sunday. It would be his first overall victory since the Volta ao Algarve at the beginning of 2024, so the Tour of Britain is not meaningless.

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‘I won’t risk my life for it but I’m going to go for it’ – Remco Evenepoel back to winning ways and two seconds off race lead at Tour of Britain Men

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