Remco Evenepoel took his running shoes to Argentina and announced that he would run a lot again in Belgium in the coming days. But Wout van Aert, Tom Pidcock, Cameron Wurf and Adam Yates are also running freaks who regularly record impressive times. Who would you put your money on if they were going head-to-head in a running race?
Remco Evenepoel: 16.6 km/h
Ran 3’37” per mile over 13 miles
Remco Evenepoel comes from football. The time we included in this list comes from 2016, when sixteen-year-old Evenepoel casually ran the Brussels half marathon the day after a youth match with Anderlecht. At the start of the race he competed with the Kenyan top riders and then finished thirteenth in a time of 1h16, good for an average of 16.6 kilometers per hour. Evenepoel’s first coach, Fred Vandervennet, was a three-time Belgian marathon champion. The same applies to Evenepoel as to Wurf, his running speed will of course have gone down, but on January 12 in Argentina he easily ran 8 kilometers at 4’12” per kilometer on the treadmill.
Tom Pidcock: 15,9 km/u
Ran 3’47” per mile over 5 miles
Is there anything Tom Pidcock isn’t good at? He is world champion cyclo-cross, mountain bike, winner of the Brabantse Pijl and a mountain stage in the Tour and also turns out to be a very strong runner. A few months ago, on October 18, 2022, he showed that again during an 8-kilometer run in Nice, France, where he achieved an average of just under 16 kilometers per hour.
Cameron Wurf: 15.6 mph
Ran 3’55” per km over the marathon
Cameron Wurf was initially a rower and for a while combined his cycling career with triathlon. In 2019, the Australian ran 2h45 over the marathon at the end of a full triathlon, so after 3.8 kilometers of swimming and 180 kilometers of cycling. Now that he has fully dedicated himself to cycling at INEOS-Grenadiers, his running speed has undoubtedly declined, but he is still one of the fastest runners in the peloton.
Cameron litter — © BELGAIMAGE
Wout van Aert: 15.2 km/h
Ran 3’57” per mile over 7km
Wout van Aert has a past in athletics and regularly schedules running training, especially in the morning on an empty stomach. On October 22, 2021, he went for an evening run in Italy, making that training a better reference for his abilities. He ran the seven kilometers at an average of more than fifteen kilometers per hour.
Adam Yates: 14,2 km/u
Ran 4’14” per mile on the marathon
Adam Yates is a tough guy. In November 2021, off-season, the INEOS-Grenadiers climber ran the Barcelona Marathon in 2h58”44. “I’ve actually only been on the beach in recent weeks, that was not the ideal preparation,” he said. The slowest time in this list, but since he recorded it on a marathon for which he had not specifically trained, there is still a lot of stretch.
