Before beating everyone except Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard in the 2024 Tour de France, Remco Evenepoel had the strangest celebration I’ve ever seen as he triumphed at the 2022 World Championships. First, he looked back to confirm the unbridgeable gap. He put his hand to his mouth, then to his head, apparently in disbelief. From there, things got weird. He raised his right hand, palm facing his body, and waved it up and down sideways, with his thumb pointing to the sky. He brought his hand back to his mouth, waved both hands sideways, and raised a heavy fist with his left hand. He silenced the jubilant crowd, pointed to his jersey, pointed to the road, and finally raised both arms above his head in a more traditional celebration as he crossed the finish line.

It’s a bragging celebration of a sitcom character whose friends look on with bewildered expressions. It’s a little silly and a little hostile. It’s a celebration of someone who wants to rub his victory in his face. It’s great.

From this celebration, you might conclude that Evenepoel is immensely talented, deeply committed to individual excellence, and uniquely arrogant. You’d be right. In addition to finishing third overall, the 24-year-old 1.70-meter-tall Belgian rider won the white jersey as the best rider under 25 at the Tour de France. Almost every time Evenepoel appeared on the Peacock broadcast, he was being talked about as a future Tour de France winner. On his Tour debut, Evenepoel won a stage, stayed strong into the third week, and was one of only two riders who seemed to be on the same planet as this otherworldly winner. He was second in the standings before dropping to third in the high mountains, but he gained a few seconds on the ailing Vingegaard on Stage 19. He was clearly the third man, finishing more than nine minutes behind Pogačar and three minutes behind Vingegaard.

Evenepoel’s interviews throughout the Tour raised some eyebrows. After the ninth stage (where he and Pogačar and Vingegaard temporarily broke away from the peloton on the gravel, but Vingegaard chose to let the group catch up rather than continue as a trio), Evenepoel criticized Vingegaard for his conservative racing style, saying they could have secured a podium there and then. A shrewd rider, Vingegaard knew that gravel was not his forte and that it was risky to be stranded with Pogačar and Evenepoel; he had also won the last two Tours de France and was racing for the win, not the podium. Evenepoel said that it took courage to race aggressively, and perhaps Vingegaard lacked it that day. Two stages later, Pogačar attacked on a climb and opened up a 30-second gap. Vingegaard chased him down the next mile, dropping Evenepoel and eventually passing Pogačar in a near photo finish. Perhaps Vingegaard had testicles removed on the intervening day.

Evenepoel also shouted at his radio on this lap, turning it off in frustration and pushing Primož Roglič ahead in the middle of the race in the hope that he could go faster. These antics led Rosael Torres-Davis to write an enjoyable blog about Cycling and wonder if the little Belgian was having a “Mad Summer”. Torres-Davis observed Evenepoel’s offensive comments about Vingegaard’s testicles and his history of relative arrogance, and wondered whether he was going to lean into his egomania or try to belittle himself. He did neither exactly. One day he would bash Vingegaard for his lack of courage, then the next he would openly admit that Vingegaard and Pogačar were on another level and that he was just racing for the podium. He respected Pogačar in particular and, although a bit arrogant, was perhaps too accepting of his place in the pecking order.

Stage 20 showed us both Evenepoel’s ferocity and the gap between him and the best. His team pushed the pace for most of the ride up the Col de la Couillole; after Vingegaard had looked uncharacteristically broken the day before, Evenepoel tried to dash into second place by attacking Vingegaard and overtaking him. Evenepoel briefly reduced the group of six to three (himself, Pogačar and Vingegaard), but he couldn’t keep up the pace for more than a few seconds and the group regrouped. His second attack was longer, breaking formation completely and pulling a bike length or two clear of Vingegaard. Then Evenepoel slowed slightly and turned his head to the right to spit, and a millisecond later Vingegaard was flying past him on his left, taking Pogačar with him. Evenepoel couldn’t even make a move to follow up, and he ended up losing almost a minute to Vingegaard (whom Pogačar had tidily overtaken). This was when the little brother pushed the big brother and then landed on his ass.

Vingegaard had a point to prove as he punished Evenepoel’s tame attack with a more powerful counterattack. The price of a spoiled summer as a professional athlete? You make powerful enemies. None of Evenepoel’s comments really crossed a line, but he was made to look like a fool at times during the Tour. Pogačar excels in explosive attack (but can also outrun anyone) and Vingegaard’s trademark is using his consistent, tireless motor to pull away from his opponents (but can also attack). Evenepoel tried both, but couldn’t keep up with his rivals in either discipline.

Evenepoel seemed quite happy with his third place finish, where the 24-year-old newcomer more or less lived up to expectations. Given Pogačar’s dominance and Vingegaard’s excellent driving just months after a devastating crash (in which Evenepoel was also injured, only less seriously), there’s a chance that these two will be at the top of the field again next year, with Evenepoel needing to improve greatly to get on the podium. Despite being the world’s best time trialist, his gap to the big two is less pronounced than their gap to him on the huge climbs. His form isn’t there yet, he knows that, but his vacillation between trying to threaten Vingegaard for second and accepting third place suggests that his mindset isn’t there either.

To win the Tour de France, you have to believe you can win the Tour de France. Evenepoel could learn a lesson from his potential rivals here. Vingegaard has a robotic appetite for pain. Pogačar moves like a shark, remains unpredictable, and smiles as he answers how great he feels no matter what happens each day. There’s a level of madness there, and Evenepoel hasn’t brought the same psychotic competitiveness this year. He may need to indulge his delusions a bit more in 2025 to live up to his predictions of greatness.