On Sunday, 18 October, Remco Evenepoel won the 44th Chrono des Nations, an individual time trial of 45.43 kilometres run at Les Herbiers in the Vendée, France. He completed the course in 49 minutes and 53 seconds, beating Australian Jay Vine of UAE Emirates-XRG by 2 minutes and 11 seconds. Swiss rider Stefan Küng took third place in 52 minutes and 20 seconds, 2 minutes and 27 seconds behind the winner. Evenepoel led at every timing point, and was already 26 seconds clear of Küng at the first intermediate and 1 minute and 47 seconds clear at the second. According to La Libre, he broke the course record by more than two minutes, and Alec Segaert finished eighth in 53 minutes and 30 seconds.
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The victory was the first of Evenepoel's career on this course, after a fifth place on his debut in 2021 and a second place in 2023, when Joshua Tarling beat him. He is now the second Belgian to win the race, after Bert Roesems in 2004. The event was once regarded as the unofficial world championship of time trialling. Evenepoel also holds four consecutive world time trial titles, plus the Olympic and European titles in the discipline. In the women's race, France's Maëva Squiban won.
After the finish he told the organisers' microphone what the day meant to him.
“It was a nice opportunity to finally win here. I took the chance to test new equipment.”
He added that he felt completely one with his bike. Evenepoel put his average speed at 54.5 km/h, while SRF gave the race average as 54.6 km/h.
RTBF and La Libre count the Chrono des Nations as his 14th win of 2026, while De Standaard counts 15 wins once the team time trial on Mallorca is included. His season included two Tour de France stage wins, one a time trial and one a mountain stage, as well as a second place overall at the Tour. He also won the European title, the Amstel Gold Race and the Clasica San Sebastian. Evenepoel named the UAE Tour as his worst moment of the year, and said the Tour of Flanders, where he finished five seconds behind Tadej Pogacar and Mathieu van der Poel, was where he suffered most. Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe team boss Ralph Denk gave the season nine out of ten.
“If you had told me last winter that Remco would ride a season like this, I would have signed for it every time.”
Team leader Klaas Lodewyck credited the detailed preparation for the Tour, including close attention to nutrition, for the rider's form there. Evenepoel described the season as very good overall and said the team would now turn the page on 2026.
Evenepoel said one more week of work remains, including wind tunnel tests, followed by two weeks of holiday and a week of rest at home. He said the 2027 season will start later than the last one, which should allow more specific training blocks. He also said he had too many transitions from one race to the next in 2026. He explained that this was normal, since he was in a new team and wanted to win as quickly as possible.
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The Belgian finished 2 minutes 11 seconds clear of Jay Vine and broke the course record, while Stefan Küng took third. The win was his 14th of the season and came in what was his final race of 2026.
AI text based on reports by De Standaard, RTBF, Le Soir and other publishers. Published .