Seven days. That’s how long it took Remco Evenepoel to go from “not a great day” in Montréal to putting out a dominant display to become European champion in Slovenia. Swap the two Sundays and we’d be talking about a rainbow jersey, and though the Euro jersey is quite fetching – we all know which one he’d prefer.

THE WRONG SUNDAY

On the 27th of September Evenepoel was one of the bookies’ favourites for the Worlds. He finished 12th eventually, 25 seconds behind Brandon McNulty, who went solo and won in 6:17:04.

Remco knew early he was on a dog of a day. “It was tough actually from the first lap on. I felt I was not on a great day.”

The irony is that two weeks earlier, after finishing fifth at GP de Montréal, he said: “It’s better to have a bad day today than in two weeks.”

D’oh!

One of those ‘shoulda coulda woulda’ days but, the bounce back yesterday was impressive.

196.3km from Ljubljana to Šenčur with just over 2,500m of climbing, he made it difficult for himself to eb siure,. On the penultimate climb of Mozjanca he overcooked a corner and hit the deck. Ramses Debruyne and Maxim Van Gils helped him back, and with 32km to go he attacked again. Only Giulio Ciccone (Italy) could follow.

BTW how beautiful does Slovenia look? Wow.

CICCONE’S (near) MASTERSTROKE

Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) rode a clever finish. He sat on Remco’s wheel, helped by the fact that Christian Scaroni was alone and threatening to bridge to the leaders. Smart move there. “I also played on the situation to stay on the wheel,” Ciccone said.

He went all in on the final corner.

“I was just thinking about this corner, and I was thinking to take the first position, but then he [Remco] understood my plan, and he made the acceleration just before.”

It was a great move though in the end to come out of the last turn in the lead – he undercut Remco by swinging left first and looked for all the world to be in for the win. The French commentator on the feed I was watching was shouting ‘Ciccone is European champion!’

Not quite tho! Remco has some serious power and despite being around 4 bike lengths back with 100m to go he powered on and took it on the line by a whisker.

“I feel really really disappointed. But first I want to say congrats to Remco, super strong ride,” Ciccone said. “In one moment I was really believing it. But then, yeah, this is the race, and it’s like this.”

He added: “I think it’s one of the hardest years of my career. I don’t know how many times I’ve finished second or on the podium. Eight, nine, or I don’t know how many times.”

Thing is though, he still should have win – watch this video, 40 secs in, and you can see clearly that Ciccone threw his wheel too late – half a second earlier and he’d have won.

But such is cycling!

“I thought I had won, but you can never be sure,” Evenepoel said. “This performance was honestly really tough for me after the disappointment of the Worlds. It’s a big relief to be back on a good level today and to complete my championship jerseys so it feels amazing.”

RESULT:

• Europeans: 1. Evenepoel (BEL, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) 4:16:37, 2. Ciccone (ITA, Lidl-Trek) same time, 3. Scaroni (ITA, XDS Astana) +0:59.