Chicken slices and three cans of Fanta - Remco Evenepoel’s time trial-winning breakfast

For any endurance athlete, fuelling is important. Getting the right amount of carbs, protein and energy in before a big effort has a tangible impact on performance. For cyclists, this often means porridge, rice and pasta before big rides - not always a normal breakfast choice, but not too unpalatable, either.

Remco Evenepoel of Soudal Quick-Step, however, perhaps crosses that line into actually quite an unappealing meal, with a strange combination he claims has been behind much of his time trialling success.

“Since the juniors, I eat the same thing before a time trial,” Evenepoel explained in a recent YouTube video documenting the Chrono des Nations in October, where he finished second.

“It seems a good meal to prepare for a TT because since I’ve been eating this, I almost never fell off the podium.”

He is the world champion, after all, so maybe this works.

The breakfast starts normally enough: ‘postelékes’ - basically small Belgian bread rolls - with jam, specifically raspberry, honey and banana.

So far so good, he's got carbohydrates, sugar and fruit, all good fuel for a big effort. But it’s what accompanies his trusty postelékes that is rather less usual.

After eating his jam rolls, he finishes up with several slices of cooked and processed chicken - just eaten straight, not in the rolls - and washes the whole meal down with half a litre of full-sugar orange Fanta. He’s specific about the half-litre quantity, and in this case that’s three mini cans of drink. Is it a close enough relative to orange juice to be considered a breakfast drink? We’re not sure.

Halfway through preparing his food, with each component carefully laid out in front of him, he asked teammate Rémi Cavagna what he eats before a time trial. Omelette and rice is the Frenchman’s answer - maybe not totally normal but standard in the cycling world, and there are certainly no packaged chicken slices in sight.

“And I always want raspberry jam,” Evenepoel went on to add, explaining how particular his race-winning meal is, even requiring his soigneur to go out and buy him his favourite jam if it’s not already available. “It’s the only jam I want to eat.”

To be honest, it wasn’t the jam that anyone was worried about. But perhaps raspberry just pairs perfectly with the tasting notes of an 8am Fanta.