20 minutes of truth

June 11 ^th 2025 - 04:54

By its very nature, the time trial pits each rider against the clock. Every man for himself, every man against the ticking clock. “I just have to go all in”, says Remco Evenepoel, an absolute expert of the discipline and holder of the world rainbow and the Olympic gold. It sounds simple, as the Belgian takes this event back to its very essence. Each man rides alone yet the successive passages over the same roads, the same bumps, the same intermediate markers raise the tension of a royal rumble.

Evenepoel hopes to make a statement on the 17.4-km course from Charmes-sur-Rhône to Saint-Péray. He feels that this ITT suits him, with “a fast start, a hard middle part and a fast finish”. His rivals, starting with Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard, are also aiming for this stage. After three days of skirmishes, the time has come to give it their all, at least for a little over 20 minutes, in a rare direct showdown between the last three riders to have stood on the overall podium of the Tour de France.

There is still a long way before reaching Paris on 27 July, starting with a mountainous weekend on the roads of the Critérium du Dauphiné. The seconds snatched away on Wednesday will perhaps be reclaimed in other circumstances, on other terrain. The big favourites for the Critérium du Dauphiné and the next Tour are watching each other very closely, and everyone is keeping score. And don't forget the other contenders, starting with Florian Lipowitz and Ivan Romeo, race leader and U23 ITT world champion.