比利时“空气子弹”伊文内普尔：连续四年拿下计时赛世界冠军，公路赛却只拿第十二

In almost any other sport, short limbs and a short temper, on top of a 1.7-meter frame, wouldn't count for much.

But in professional cycling — a world decided by wind resistance, watts and endurance — those traits combine into a rare weapon.

Belgian rider Remco Evenepoel is twenty-six and weighs only a little over sixty kilograms, yet he's one of the fastest people in the world.

Some even believe he may be the most aerodynamic cyclist in history.

Air flows over his body so smoothly that rivals complain there's almost no shelter from the wind when they ride behind him.

French rider Romain Bardet once said it's terrible — like riding into a headwind the whole time.

When he rides, his short arms stay tucked in front of him, and his squat thighs keep his legs bent for more of each pedal stroke, which cuts wind resistance a bit more.

Even his skin is said to be "aerodynamic": a kit maker once found he was faster in a short-sleeved jersey than fully covered up.

He jokes that he'd most like to ride in his underwear.

That's why people call him the "Aerobullet."

That gift earns him about eight million dollars a year, making him the second-highest-paid rider, behind only reigning Tour de France champion Tadej Pogacar.

Still, his team and his bike sponsor spend even more on him.

He's more willing than anyone on his team to spend time testing equipment and adjusting his position, heading to velodromes and wind tunnels whenever he can, just to squeeze out fractions of a second.

When he isn't around, his sponsor even has a life-size dummy of him that can sit on the bike and be tested in his place.

Dan Bigham, the aerodynamics expert who works with him, says he's willing to challenge the status quo and treats it as a true optimization problem.

So it's no surprise that in the time trial, a pure test of power and efficiency, he has won world and Olympic titles again and again.

The strange part is that although his body seems made to measure for this sport, his heart was first set elsewhere.

His childhood dream was to play for Belgium's national soccer team, and he played on the youth teams of PSV Eindhoven in the Netherlands and Anderlecht in Belgium.

He says soccer made his body stronger and taught him how to handle disappointment, because he later realized he'd never become a top professional player.

Soccer was his first love — and it also broke his heart.

Years later, he posted a video on social media telling his former coaches: thank you for breaking me.

Once he put himself back together, he committed fully to cycling.

He first became an unbeatable time-trial specialist, then broke through in the Grand Tours: he won the 2022 Vuelta a España and has since finished on the Tour de France podium twice.

Before the 2024 Paris Olympics he complained that Paris's roads were awful; days later, he flew across those same cobblestones to win the road race gold.

This year's world championships were held in Montreal, Canada.

In the individual time trial on September 20, he won by fifty-seven seconds over Italy's Filippo Ganna, becoming the first man to win the event four years in a row.

With Pogacar ruled out after a crash in Spain, many thought he could take both the time-trial and road-race titles at the same championships.

But the road race on September 27 turned out very differently than many expected.

In a race of more than 270 kilometers, American rider Brandon McNulty attacked alone from an eight-man lead group more than thirty kilometers from the finish, and crossed the line thirteen seconds ahead.

Usually one of Pogacar's most important teammates, he became the first American man in thirty-three years to win the road race world title.

Afterward he said that until the last three hundred meters he couldn't believe he'd win, because he was so tired.

As for Evenepoel, this time he finished only twelfth.

To many cycling fans he's a divisive figure: he complains when he's unhappy and lets everyone know when he's angry — not even his teammates are spared.

During this year's Tour, he publicly blew up over how much a teammate was willing to do the hard work at the front; after a talk behind closed doors, they even filmed a making-up video.

Afterward he said only: once you talk it out, you forget it.

Do you think a person's success depends more on the body they're born with, or on effort and character?