Portugal Colonial - 'Fresh' Evenepoel answers Tour de France questions

The 26-year-old Belgian has become the world's best time-triallist since bursting onto the professional scene as a precocious teenager in 2019.

He also enjoyed early success in week-long stage races and punchy one-day classics.

But despite winning the 2022 Vuelta a Espana, and finishing third at the Tour in 2024, many experts felt that Evenepoel lacked the climbing endurance to be a consistent challenger to the very best at the Tour de France.

Having won two stages and finished second overall to five-time winner Tadej Pogacar at the Tour, Evenepoel said he had proved that he belonged amongst the sport's elite climbers.

"We learned a lot about my physique, about my mentality, my weight and the watts per kilo," said the three-time world time-trial champion.

"We learned a lot in this Tour de France without really having to go over the limit.

"So, for the future, we have a lot of answers to questions."

One of those answers was whether or not he could maintain his form into the third week of the most arduous of Grand Tours.

If anything, he actually improved.

"I showed to myself and also towards the team that I was on a very good level and a high level for three weeks," he said after Sunday's final stage.

"Now, I feel still really fresh, no real fatigue in the body.

"That's good and we will take that towards the future."

- 'A step up' -

During the first half of the race, Evenepoel had lost contact with other contenders for a podium finish -- such as Jonas Vingegaard, Paul Seixas, Isaac del Toro and even his own Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe team-mate Florian Lipowitz -- on the longer, tougher climbs.

But in most cases, he managed to catch up with those rivals on a subsequent descent, allowing him to even gain time on occasions rather than losing it.

But in the final week, after Vingegaard and Lipowitz had crashed out of the race, he was the one distancing his podium rivals when the race headed uphill.

He finished more than three minutes ahead of Del Toro and five and a half minutes ahead of Seixas in the final standings.

Evenepoel won a stage with a mountain top finish for the first time at the Tour and was also second on two other such stages.

On the back-to-back stages finishing on the iconic Alpe d'Huez climb, he proved stronger than all of his podium rivals -- except Pogacar, of course.

"What we achieved is what we were aiming for, to get the stage win and then finishing on the podium, like in 2024," he said.

"But now it was two stage wins, two very nice second places as well in very hard stages.

"That really shows that I've gone up a step in terms of climbing level and in performance on the hardest stages."

He had said earlier this year that his overall goal was still to win the Tour de France one day -- something which seemed like a pipe dream given the competition.

Pogacar is only one year older than Evenepoel and continues to look unbeatable at the Tour.

And even when he retires, the next generation are already performing at an elite level.

Del Toro is 22 and Seixas is 19, and both have a greater scope for improvement than Evenepoel.

Seixas, in particular, was riding a three-week Grand Tour for the first time and visibly ran out of steam in the latter stages.

He will likely be an altogether different proposition next year.

But Evenepoel is now convinced that his ultimate goal is an attainable one.

"After this result, I think I've shown towards myself, my team and also to the outside world that I deserve to dream and aim for that," he said.

J.V.Jacinto--PC