'You don't win a Championships like that' – Remco Evenepoel slams Lotto and other rivals for Belgian Nationals road race tactics
Strongest rider of day has to settle for second, 38 seconds down behind lone winner T♓im Wellens

As168澳洲5最新开奖结果: Remco Evenepoel sees it, Tim Wellens was a deserving winner of the 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Belgian Road National Championships - but for the silver medallist at least, the bizarre tactiღcs used by his other rivals in Sun🧸day's race made it much tougher to challenge Wellens for the victory, too.
Evenepoel finished 38 seconds down on Wellen♐s, after the UAE Team Emirates-XRG racer forged a spectacular 41-kilometre solo winning at🐬tack and Evenepoel engaged in a long, unsuccessful two-man pursuit with Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck).
But while even Wellens later described Evenepoel as 'the best rider in the race,' and Evenepoel had been able to burn his rivals off his wheel on numerous occasions in the first part of the Championships road race, the 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Soudal-Quickstep racer still couldn't add a gold medal to the one he'd already acquired three days earlier in the 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:elite men's time trial.
"Some teams' tactics decided how the finish played out," a visibly disappointed Evenepoel told reporters afterwards. "For example, I found it ha🐲rd to underst༺and how Lotto were racing.
"They had the legs to go after all the attacks durin🐻g the day, but at the end, there wasn't anybody left to collaborate and work with them.
"Their Ch🌄ampionships tac✱tics were very bizarre, even if they had some strong guys up there, like [Alec] Segaert and [Jenno] Berckmoes, who are both in great form.
"I found it hard to understand their tactics. You don't win a🦹 Championships racing♛ like that…"
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Evenepoel was more forgiving of the strategy employed by Philipsen, who failed to collaborate with him in full when the two of them were trying to chase down Wellens.
As Evenepoel pointed out, he could understand Philipsen's reticence given the Alpecin racer's strength as a sprinter, while he was not overly happy at having Philipsen sitting on his back wheel as well. The consequence of their only partial alliance, he said, was that it was like having "one and a half riders against one [Wellens]."
Evenepoel paid full credit to Wellens, i🎉n any caᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚse, saying that he hadn't been able to follow him immediately when the UAE racer attacked. On the plus side, too, while he was upset at not winning, he did take the positives for the Tour de France.
"💝I did a good race, I wanted it to toughen it all up, even if the course its♒elf was not overly selective. The only real climb was a kilometre long, and for the rest of the route it was difficult to surprise anybody."
"I'm a winner, so it's only natural I'm disappointed. I'd have liked to go to the Tour with the Belgian National Ch🐻ampion's jersey on my back, but that won't be the case. But there are other Chꦗampionships this year."
Evenepoel will now take a short break to be as fresh as possible for the start of the Tour de France on July 5 in Lille. But as he concluded after his Championships races, "the signs are good♑."
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Alasdair Fotheringham has been reporting on cycling since 1991. He has covered every Tour de France since 1992 bar one, as well as numerous other bike races of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Olympic Games in 2008 to the now sadly defunct Subida a Urkiola hill climb in Spain. As well as working for Cyclingnews, he has also written for The Independent, The Guardian, ProCycling, The Express and Reuters.
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