The 22-year-old Belgian will have a chance on Sunday to win the Portuguese title for the second time in his career.
Remco Evenepoel (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) stunned the Algarve Tour (2.Pro) road competition with the win, nearly a minute ahead of Swiss Stefan Kung (Groupama-FDJ), a 32.2km trial, Saturday in Tavira. The Belgian finished the distance in 37:49 (average 51.06 km/h).
However, the European champion in discipline, Kong failed in 58 seconds from the Belgian, who added his 24th win to his record. Britain’s Ethan Hayter (INEOS Grenadiers) was third with a time of 1:06.
This is the third victory in 4 stages for the Belgian national team after the victory of Dutch runner Fabio Jacobsen in Lagos and Faro during the first and third stages.
The leader since stage two, Frenchman David Godot (Groupama-FDJ), ninth of the day at 2:09, gave up his yellow coat to the Schepdaal national, who is now 1:06 ahead of Hayter in the general standings ahead of the fifth and final stage with an uneven profile. The peloton will depart from Lagoa to arrive, after 173 km, at Loulé, where the finish will be judged at the top of the Alto Malhao, a 2.6 km climb.
Evenpool, 22 and 2 on the Valencia Community Tour for his first race in 2022, will have the chance on Sunday to win, for the second time after 2020, the Portuguese meet. It will be his eighth win in a stage race after the Tour of Belgium (2019, 2021), the Tour of San Juan (2020), the Tour of the Algarve (2020), the Tour of Burgos (2020), the Tour of Poland (2020) and the Tour of Denmark (2021).
Evenepoel: “I was surprised by the big differences”
“To be completely honest, I am a little surprised that the difference with the second is so great,” admitted Remco Evenepoel (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl), winner on Saturday of the Algarve Tour’s time trial authority (2.Pro), stage 4 of 5 stage race stages. Portuguese.
The Belgian clocked 32.2 km in 37:49, 58 seconds short of Swiss Stefan Kung (Groupama-FDJ), the European champion in the discipline. “I thought the fight would be more intense,” Eurosport told Eurosport. “For the past few days I’ve been working for Fabio (Jacobsen, 2 stage winner, editor’s note) and the hard finish has been complicated (Thursday, editor’s note). Today I had one of my best days trying time, everything went well. I hope to keep I have legs like these for the next lap times.”
“I knew the track well, was ready and did another survey on Saturday morning. The wind was pretty strong, which probably worked to my advantage thanks to the aerodynamics and smaller shape. With Küng, I had the opponent and I didn’t underestimate him.”
This victory allows the Wolfpack member to take control of the General on the eve of the epilogue, who is 1:06 ahead of Britain’s Ethan Hayter (INEOS Grenadiers). “I’m happy with my performance and with this captain’s jersey. Sunday will be a great fight. Big progress but anything can still happen. We have to keep our focus and avoid problems,” Eveningball captioned.
