Remco Evenepoel grew up in Aalst, Belgium, as a promising footballer — he played as a midfielder in the youth ranks of Anderlecht and PSV Eindhoven before a foot injury redirected him towards the sport his father Patrick had made a career in. He picked up a bike in 2017, won six junior world titles in 2018, and turned professional at 19, skipping the under-23 ranks entirely.
His early career was marked by prodigious wins and a near-fatal crash at the 2020 Il Lombardia, where he fell off a bridge and fractured his pelvis. He came back stronger: in 2022 he won Liège–Bastogne–Liège, the Vuelta a España, and the UCI Road World Championships within six months — the first Belgian to win a Grand Tour since 1978. At the 2024 Paris Olympics he became the only male cyclist ever to win both the road race and time trial at the same Games. He has since won three consecutive UCI World TT titles (2023, 2024, 2025), cementing his status as the greatest time trialist of his generation.
He moved to Red Bull–BORA–Hansgrohe for 2026, ending his seven-year relationship with the QuickStep programme a year early in a bid to build a team around his Grand Tour ambitions. He is married to Oumaïma Rayane, whom he credits as central to his recovery from two serious crashes.