Remco Evenepoel: Five reasons why the runaway Quick-Step star has not won La Vuelta yet

When a football team goes into the break with a four-goal lead it’s hard seeing any way back for their opponents – especially when they’re a man down. Remco Evenepoel finds himself in a similar situation at the top of the deck in La Vuelta. We’re not even at the halfway point and the Belgian has a lead of 2’41” over his nearest rival, having consigned defending champion Primoz Roglic to his first ever loss in a Vuelta TT.

“My goodness,” Dan Lloyd said in The Breakaway about a man who was “head and shoulders above everyone else” in the Stage 10 time trial. “Unless he starts to crack in some way, there's very little hope for anyone else in this race, given what we've seen today and in the rest of the race so far." Ad For Australian pundit Robbie McEwen, the response to Carlton Kirby’s question of how anyone is expected to deal with Evenepoel in such form, was even starker. Vuelta a EspañaIneos must be willing 'to lose massively' to stop Evenepoel — BlytheAN HOUR AGO “You hope that he blows up because if he stays at this level, he is going to obliterate the field by the time they get to Madrid.

In fact, he has already done that today in this 30km test. He is the definition of a teardrop – he is so slippery through the wind on a time trial bike and has the power to push them long. And 48 seconds to the good of Primoz Roglic, who has never lost a time trial in Spain… The king is dead – long live the king! Remco is here.” It would take a cataclysmic collapse or a comeback of monumental proportions for Evenepoel to lose this race now.