Johan Museeuw: Remco Evenepoel has a better chance of winning the Tour de France on another team

Former Classics specialist Johan Museeuw has told the Geraint Thomas Cycling Club Podcast that Remco Evenepoel has a 60% chance of winning the Tour de France and that the young rider’s odds would improve on another team.

Evenepoel is set to make his Tour de France debut for Soudal Quick-Step in 2024 after winning the Vuelta a España in 2022 and showing flashes of his brilliance during two editions of the Giro d’Italia and this year's Vuelta, where he won three stages and the mountains classification.

“It will be difficult to win the Tour de France. In my opinion, he does very well in one-day races. He wins those races in a great way like he did in Liège-Bastogne-Liège and San Sebastián, he has the capacity to win the Tour de France but I’m not sure he can win,” Museeuw told Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) and the Welshman’s teammate Laurens De Plus.

“The people who win the Tour de France are special and you have in your hand five fingers and in the peloton, there are three or four guys who can win the Tour de France. Before that was Chris Froome, Bradley Wiggins, and you,” he told Thomas.

“And now it’s Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard but there aren’t many riders who can go to the Tour de France with a 90 or 95 per cent chance of winning. Now Remco has a 60 per cent chance of winning. I think that if he goes to another team in the future then he has more chance but that’s another discussion. I believe in him, he’s a phenomenon and I love how he rides but I have to be honest with how I see it.”

Thomas, who won the Tour de France in 2018, has not confirmed his Grand Tour ambitions for next season but the Welshman did joke that Evenepoel’s chances of winning the Tour would increase to 70 per cent if the Belgian joined Ineos. A potential transfer has been rumoured for over a year now but Evenepoel remains tied to Soudal Quick-Step until the end of 2026. Thomas did have slightly more faith in the Belgian rider’s chances though when it came to Tour success.

“I think he can, especially with Quick-Step getting better. It’s not their forte, Grand Tours, at the moment, but you never know.”

In November, Thomas told GCN that he would openly welcome Evenepoel on the Ineos Grenadiers roster. The team has also been linked with another Belgian youngster, Cian Uijtdebroeks who currently races at Bora-Hansgrohe. 

“To be honest I’d love it if they did. I think it would be great for the team but I just can’t see the Remco thing happening,” Thomas told GCN.

“I don’t know anything about it but purely from the outside, him being a Belgian on a Belgian team, I just don’t see how he could. And Uijtdebroeks, it would be great if he came but who knows with that. He’d be another young guy, top ten in the Vuelta. It would be great to have either of them.”