No one can match the Belgian Cats, and so Emma Meesseman is Sportswoman of the Year for the second time. Remco Evenepoel trumped his friend Isaac Kimeli (“Kimeli, answer me!”). Despite his withdrawal from the Tour, he is the best sportsman for the fifth time. One more time and he will equal the record of – here we go again – Eddy Merckx.
Because you couldn’t possibly have seen every sporting event last weekend, HUMO awards a score every Monday morning for the weekend’s sporting moment.
What? Emma Meesseman and Remco Evenepoel have been voted Belgian Sportswoman and Sportsman of the Year 2025 by the Belgian sports press.
How many points? 7 out of 10.
Why that particular score? Because their lead over Isaac Kimeli and Roos Vanotterdijk is excessive.
Evenepoel beat Isaac Kimeli with remarkable ease, with double the points. That’s a lot. Evenepoel gave up in the Tour, the main goal of his season. He won three time trial titles – world, European, and Belgian – but on the road, he had to concede defeat to Tadej Pogacar. The Brabantse Pijl remained his biggest one-day victory. In Evenepoel’s own words: it was “a difficult season.”
Meesseman also won by a large margin, over Roos Vanotterdijk. Meesseman became European champion with the Belgian Cats, whose team also included Julie Allemand and Julie Vanloo in the top 10. Three basketball players, in other words, which is a lot for a team sport. And excessive. More than the Cats beating Spain in the final, it was Spain that gave away a certain victory: in the final two minutes, they did almost everything they could do wrong. The Cats were gifted the European title.
