Remco Evenepoel drama at Giro d'Italia 2021: ‘Throwing his toys out the pram – he lost his head!’
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Updated 19/05/2021 at 20:33 GMT
"We saw Evenepoel pull out his earpiece, he really was throwing his toys out the pram. He lost his head a bit but I’m not surprised. A young rider like that… Almeida should never have been that far in front of him," said Sean Kelly on The Breakaway. Evenepoel is now 2:22 back from Egan Bernal in the maglia rosa.
‘Throwing his toys out the pram – he lost his head!’ – Kelly on Evenepoel drama
Remco Evenepoel (Deceuninck-QuickStep) “threw his toys out the pram” and “lost his head a bit” after being distanced on Stage 11 at the Giro d’Italia, according to Eurosport expert Sean Kelly, who also sympathised with the wonderkid.
The Belgian was exposed on the white gravel roads of Tuscany after Ineos Grenadiers had set a fierce tempo on the front, with teammate Joao Almeida initially not dropping back in support of him.
The 21-year-old, who is making his competitive return from a horror crash last year, was visibly angry at being left on his own and was spotted ripping out his communication device.
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‘It’s not nice to say I’m dropped’ – What happened with Evenepoel and Almeida?
Almeida did eventually arrive on the scene and set about helping Evenepoel limit his losses, but by the end of the stage he had slipped from second to seventh in GC – 2:22 off Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers).
The Eurosport commentary team were baffled by the whole affair, while Alberto Contador labelled it “shocking” from Deceuninck, with Kelly still bemused after the stage.
“It’s a difficult one to read. I don’t know what was going on there,” said Kelly on The Breakaway.
“He [Almeida] needs to stay behind and not go in front of him because on those sorts of roads on a normal descent is difficult but when you’re on gravel roads it’s impossible to keep looking around.
“We saw Evenepoel pull out his earpiece, he really was throwing his toys out the pram.
He lost his head a bit but I’m not surprised. A young rider like that… Almeida should never have been that far in front of him.
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Evenepoel has lit up the Giro on his Grand Tour debut, hinting at an improbable run into the maglia rosa before the cracks appeared on Wednesday.
“We saw later on he was looking totally empty and that was always the question,” added Kelly.
“How long could he last in this race? His first big three-week race having been out for so long.
You could see he was paying the price there today.
Evenepoel arrived in Italy as co-leader with Almeida, but quickly became the preferred candidate after his team-mate leaked time in the first week.
Bernal’s closest challenger in GC is now Aleksandr Vlasov (Astana-Premier Tech), who is 45 seconds off the lead.
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