After weeks of speculation, Remco Evenepoel has confirmed that he is leaving his team, Soudal Quick-Step, and joining Red Bull-Bora-hanshgrohe for the next year. The 25-year-old Belgian, double Olympic champion in 2024 (road race and time trial), two-time world champion, Vuelta a España winner, multiple Monument winner (including two Liège-Bastogne-Liège), had fans worried as he recently withdrew from Tour de France, where he still managed to win a stage.
Evenepoel puts and end to a six year stint on Quick-Step, since 2019, when Evenepoel turned professional. Evenepoel declined an extension of his contract, which was set to expire at the end of 2026, and by it was "have decided that it is in best interest of everyone to agree that Remco can move at the end of the current 2025 season".
According to Cycling Weekly, Evenepoel will have to pay 5 million euros to Quick-Step in compensation, and Red Bull will add 2 million.
Shortly after his withdrawal from Tour, Evenepoel posted that he pushed too hard, participated in the Tour with a broken rib and still not fully recovered from the big crash in December 2024. About the day he decided to leave Tour de France, he said that it "became one of the rawest and most vulnerable moments of my career. I broke and strangely enough, I'm proud of it. It's okay to stop. It's okay to feel tired. It's okay to be human. Sometimes stepping back is the strongest thing you can do".