Evenepoel Takes Podium on Flanders Debut — Third Behind Pogacar and Van der Poel
Remco Evenepoel crowned his shock Tour of Flanders debut with a remarkable third place on Sunday, finishing on the podium of the 110th Ronde van Vlaanderen behind a dominant Tadej Pogacar and a valiant Mathieu van der Poel. The Belgian, racing his first Monument on the cobbles, crossed the line in Oudenaarde 1'20" down on the Slovenian winner after a long, lonely solo pursuit across the Flemish Ardennes.
It was the kind of debut no one outside of Evenepoel's immediate circle had dared predict. The 25-year-old only confirmed his participation on April 1st — a date Pogacar initially assumed meant the announcement was an April Fools' joke — and had never before ridden a race even remotely comparable in terms of cobbled sector density or finale violence. Three months ago, most of the cycling world assumed his 2026 classics calendar would end at Liège-Bastogne-Liège. Instead, he is stepping onto the Ronde podium as a Monument debutant.
"I came here to learn, and I got a podium at the Tour of Flanders," Evenepoel said, shaking his head slightly as if not quite believing it himself. "I wanted to see what my level was on this type of terrain, and honestly I did not think a podium was realistic today. Tadej was in another world. Mathieu too, in the finale. But to be third at my first Flanders — that is a day I will never forget."
The race-decisive moment came on the third and final ascent of the Oude Kwaremont, when Pogacar went up the road and neither Van der Poel nor Evenepoel could follow. The Alpecin-Deceuninck leader attempted a brief chase, while Evenepoel — distanced earlier when the elite group split on the Koppenberg — found himself riding his own race in no-man's land. What followed was pure Evenepoel: head down, aero tuck, and the kind of remorseless solo pursuit that is the signature of his time-trialing DNA.
For long stretches of the final 30 kilometres, he held the gap to Van der Poel at around 40 seconds, never closing but never losing ground either. The chase behind — featuring Wout van Aert, Mads Pedersen and a regrouped Filippo Ganna — could never quite organise itself enough to bridge to the young Belgian, leaving Evenepoel to time-trial his way to bronze.
It is a result that fundamentally changes the conversation around Evenepoel's classics ceiling. His Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe team — which had taken a calculated gamble on slotting their GC star into the biggest cobbled race of the year — will leave Oudenaarde vindicated. Sport director Rolf Aldag had insisted on Saturday that the team was "not here to animate the race", and his riders delivered on that claim in spectacular fashion: seven-time Flanders veteran Gianni Vermeersch shepherded Evenepoel perfectly through the crucial first half, allowing him to hit the Flemish Ardennes with fresh legs.
Pogacar, whose 12th career Monument solo made him the new all-time record holder, was generous in his post-race assessment of his rival. "I told everybody before the race — Remco is the most unpredictable rider in the peloton. I was worried about him attacking from nowhere. Third on his debut is an unbelievable ride. He belongs on this podium."
Evenepoel will not line up at Paris-Roubaix next weekend, with Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe holding firm to their plan to pivot him back to the Ardennes from here. But after Sunday's performance, the door to a cobbled classics future — once assumed to be closed on grounds of risk and physiology — suddenly looks very open indeed.