How Remco Evenepoel Trains (the Ex-Footballer With a Legendary Engine)
Evenepoel came to cycling from football and won Olympic time-trial gold. His power-based method, why his famous VO2max is disputed, how to estimate yours.
Remco Evenepoel won the Olympic time trial and road race at the same 2024 Games, the first man to do both. Sustained power against the clock is his weapon. He is also the rider whose VO2max gets quoted at parties as a number nobody can source. Two lessons: how time-triallists train to a wattage, and why to distrust headline physiology figures.
From football to a bike
Evenepoel was a youth footballer at Anderlecht and PSV, captained Belgium at under-16 level, and switched to cycling around 17. A trained young athlete carries an aerobic and competitive base between sports, the same theme as Primož Roglič's ski-jumping switch.
A 2020 crash at Il Lombardia, where he went over a bridge wall and fractured his pelvis, could have ended his career. He was winning the Vuelta and the World Championship road race by 2022.
Training to a number
Evenepoel's time-trialling is built on holding a known, sustainable wattage, with reported threshold figures around 420 to 425 watts during Tour preparation. The individual time trial is pacing: go out at a wattage you can hold for the full distance and do not let adrenaline push you past it in the first five minutes. That is what an FTP or critical power number is for.
His preparation leans on altitude camps, where lactate testing confirms his zones. His long-time coach has said altitude does not help every rider equally and has to be judged case by case.
The VO2max you keep hearing about
Evenepoel's VO2max gets quoted anywhere from the mid-80s to the low-90s ml/kg/min. There is no publicly released, team-verified lab measurement. The circulating figures are loose reporting and enthusiasts reverse-calculating from race power, which is not a test. He is an extraordinary aerobic athlete. The number is folklore.
This is the third time in this series, after Kilian Jornet and Kristian Blummenfelt. Measure your own instead. The simplest field method is the Cooper test: run or ride as far as you can in twelve minutes and estimate from the distance.
Geschätzte VO2max
42.4ml/kg/min
aus dem 12-Minuten-Cooper-Test
Grob, wo das liegt
| Sitzend, etwa 30 bis 40 | 30 bis 40 ml/kg/min |
| Freizeitsportlich aktiv, etwa 40 bis 50Empfohlen | 40 bis 50 ml/kg/min |
| Gut trainiert, etwa 50 bis 60 | 50 bis 60 ml/kg/min |
| Ausdauerathlet, 60+ | 60+ ml/kg/min |
- Dies ist eine Feldschätzung. Ein gut eingeteilter Lauf auf flacher Strecke landet innerhalb weniger Punkte eines Labortests, aber Pacing, Gelände und Wetter verschieben die Zahl alle.
- Eine echte VO2max braucht einen Labor-Gasanalyse-Test. Submaximale Optionen sind die Uth-Sorensen-Herzfrequenz-Methode (VO2max ist etwa 15,3 mal HRmax geteilt durch HRrest) und der Rockport-Eine-Meile-Geh-Test.
- Fitnesskategorien variieren nach Alter und Geschlecht. Behandle das Band als Orientierung, nicht als harte Grenze, und vergleiche es im Zeitverlauf mit deinen eigenen früheren Tests.
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It is an estimate and says so. Track it over a season and the trend tells you more than any single headline value.
2026
Evenepoel moved to Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe for 2026, leaving the team he had been with since his youth. At the 2026 Tour de France he finished second overall behind Tadej Pogačar and won two individual time-trial stages, including one where he beat Pogačar by 28 seconds. His own summary: he had "shown he deserves to dream" about future Grand Tours.
What you can steal from it
- Pace to a wattage, not to adrenaline. Set it with FTP or critical power and hold it.
- Estimate your own VO2max. The Cooper test gives you a trackable figure. The pros' headline numbers usually are not verified.
- A trained athlete transfers between sports. Evenepoel's football base and Roglič's ski-jumping base both became cycling engines.
- Judge altitude and gadgets on your own response. Even his coach will not apply altitude camps as a blanket rule.
More in this series: Tadej Pogačar, Jonas Vingegaard, Primož Roglič, Mathieu van der Poel and Demi Vollering.
Sources
Cover photo by Kakoula10, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
