Perhaps Remco Evenepoel is the new Merckx after all, Annemiek Van Vleuten’s greatest year – Blazin’ Saddles

A week that started with Remco Evenepoel worrying about magpies and progressed with Bauke Mollema being attacked by a seagull in the mixed relay ended with the recently crowned Vuelta champion swooping like a bird of prey to secure a maiden World crown at the age of just 22. It certainly didn’t harm Evenepoel’s chances that one of his main rivals was kept up by two teenagers knocking on his door – resulting in Mathieu van der Poel spending some hours in police custody after an alleged assault in the corridor of his hotel.

But such was Evenepoel’s form coming into the race, there was probably only ever going to be one winner. Ad Preamble over, let’s now take a closer look at those six talking points – but only after we relish Mollema’s avian mishap one more time… World ChampionshipsVan der Poel fined for World Championships hotel incident, allowed to fly home8 HOURS AGO Perhaps Evenepoel is the new Merckx after all If the “New Merckx” tag has hung over his head like the sword of Damocles for years, Remco Evenepoel certainly hasn’t let it come in the way of picking up big wins.

His 37th to date – and arguably his biggest – saw Evenepoel become only the fourth rider in history to win a Monument, a Grand Tour, and the Worlds road race in the sa One of his predecessors to this particular Grand Slam was, of course, Eddy Merckx. But while Merckx was five and a half months younger than Evenepoel when he took the rainbow jersey in Heerlen in 1967 (for what was, incidentally, his 29th pro win), the Cannibal did not become a Grand Tour winner for the first time until the following May, when he was 117 days older than Evenepoel would be.