Opinion: Blip or first sign of weakness in Remco Evenepoel’s red armour at La Vuelta 2022?

It was Albert Einstein who made the timeless observation that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is a form of insanity. Well, it’s hard to see what Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl riders expect to happen when they keep over-banking slippery corners with such gusto.

Just 24 hours after Julian Alaphilippe crashed himself out of the Vuelta with a fall that saw him dislocate his shoulder, team-mate Remco Evenepoel replicated the Frenchman’s skid with aplomb with a crash of his own on an innocuous bend during the descent back towards the coast at a point in the race when Quick-Step were under no real pressure. Ad If Evenepoel appeared to keep his cool during the seemingly interminable wait for a new bike, the ex-footballer in him soon shone through when he rode up alongside the race director’s car and launched an unsavoury tirade – blaming everyone from the TV motorcycle to the Spanish road layers, but not the person who was actually responsible: himself.

Vuelta a EspañaEvenepoel recovers from crash to lay down marker, Carapaz wins Stage 124 HOURS AGO Having slipped up on his own banana skin, Evenepoel’s reaction was perhaps entirely understandable: it’s human nature to lash out when under pressure and to look for someone else to point the finger at. In the 22-year-old’s defence, he soon battled back and regained his composure ahead of the final climb to Penas Blancas in the wake of Richard Carapaz’s win.

But at what cost? Besides the graze to his hip and cut knee, Evenepoel didn’t display any serious after-effects of his crash when he darted to the line in the closing moments to take some more seconds off some of his lesser rivals in the battle for red. And when asked about the damage from his