Armstrong went on to delve into how badly Evenepoel must be struggling: “Jonas managed to pass Remco, the Olympic time trial champion, so he will feel better. For the Belgian, the lights are going out for him quickly in this Tour de France, he’s having to be very demolarizing, you always see when you’re going to get caught and I don’t think he could have expected that to happen.”
Hincapie agreed with Armstrong: “Yeah, he doesn’t look like he’s having fun, he’s slowly sinking. Tadej chose to ride a normal bike and still took 5 seconds off Jonas on the flat part, we were shocked and scared. In a start like that it’s normal to get 5 seconds per km on a road bike.”
In the same vein Bradley Wiggins continued: “Remco is a winner, he carries the weight of a nation on his shoulders. There’s a lot of pressure on him and he puts a lot of pressure on himself. This has been his main goal all year and, well, he must have been embarrassed today. He is a time trial dominator and even if it was a time trial it still hurts. The thing is, he’s still on the podium”.
“The main drama and the main action in the remainder of the Tour will be in the fight for the podium. Remco, a world and Olympic champion who has won many time trials throughout his career, we can safely say that he has never been lapped in a time trial in his life,” replied LAmstrong, who couldn’t believe what had happened to the Belgian on the Pyrenean ascent.
Spencer Martin gave him the punch line: “He just lost a minute to Luke Plapp, a good time trialist, but not an overall man, and he’s still on the podium, that’s the crazy part. The problem for him is that there’s only mountains left, there’s no time trial left, Lipowitz is only 6 seconds behind him and he looks like he’s going to hunt him down.”
“Do you think he might end up withdrawing?” asked Martin to his colleagues. And Wiggins was very clear about it:
“I’m not sure. I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets off the wagon because he seems to be completely demoralized. It’s hard to stay in the Tour when you have nothing to fight for. How much left in his legs to fight for? When they don’t go, they don’t go.”