There have been no last-minute upsets on the Kristallen Fiets – Crystal Bicycle – awards this yr as Lotte Kopecky was voted finest feminine Belgian rider for the fifth time in her profession, whereas Remco Evenepoel acquired the identical honour in his class for a fourth time as nicely.
Neither star title was current within the glitzy mid-week ceremony within the Belgian city of Kruisen. Evenepoel has gone down with a foul fever simply days after ending second in his final race of the season, Il Lombardia, and was too ailing to attend, whereas Kopecky is presently en path to the Track World Championships in Denmark.
However, Evenepoel didn’t beat across the bush in a pre-event interview for Het Laatste Nieuws, the newspaper organising the awards ceremony, saying the successes in his season had given him loads of grounds to suppose he was in line for a 3rd straight Kristallen Fiets.
“With what I’ve achieved this season, with my two gold medals within the Olympics, my podium end within the Tour and stage victory there – sure, I did anticipate this, I believed I deserved to be primary,” Evenepoel mentioned, with crew boss Patrick Lefevere accepting the award in individual on his behalf.
Apologizing for his absence, he added, “I might have preferred to have been there with you all, however I’m feeling too ailing.”
A crew get-together subsequent week will seemingly set up a way more definitive race program for 2025 for Evenepoel, however he mentioned he was eager to make a return to Paris-Nice and implied {that a} return to the Giro d’Italia was not dominated out, both.
Regarding Paris-Nice, “I’d like there to be a person time trial fairly than a crew TT” – as has been the case within the Course au Soleil for the final two years – and as for the Giro, “it’s going to all rely upon the route, which must be revealed quickly. But if I just like the Tour de France route, my thoughts must be made up quickly, as a result of my podium there made me hungry for extra.”
The 2025 Tour de France route presentation – for each males’s and girls’s races – is because of happen on October 29, whereas the Giro d’Italia’s equal occasion is ready to happen on November 12.
Kopecky was additionally requested by Het Laatste Nieuws about her future plans, however the 2024 Road World Champion and Paris-Roubaix winner was adamant, too, that “If I can say one factor about subsequent season, it’s that it actually can’t be higher than this yr. But I’ll do all the pieces I can to attempt to attain the identical degree of health.”
“It could be very tough to select one second from this season, however I had been chasing that victory in Paris-Roubaix for a very long time and the truth that I might win it carrying a ravishing rainbow jersey was the cherry on the highest.”
Evenepoel was the clear winner in his class, amassing 984 votes in comparison with 530 for closest runner-up Tim Merlier and 460 for Jasper Philipsen. His whole of 4 Kristallen Fiets awards is now one in need of the all-time document, held by Classics nice Johan Museeuw. Kopecky in the meantime, was already the record-holder in her class, along with her new, elevated, tally of 5 awards as soon as once more underlining her standing as the highest Belgian racer of her technology.
In different awards handed out on Tuesday night time’s ceremony, Fleur Moors (Lidl-Trek) and Jarno Widar (Lotto-Dstny Development Team) received the respective Kristallen Fiets junior classes and Justine Ghekiere (AG Insurance-Soudal), who conquered a stage of the Tour de France Femmes this summer season, was declared finest teammate – the primary ever feminine winner of the award. Sven Vanthourenhout – the Belgian National Team Coach till he left the publish after the Zürich World Championships – acquired the award as finest sports activities director.