Remco Evenpole (Quick-Step-Alfa Vinyl) admitted he doesn't have the legs to catch his rivals for the overall title as he plummeted down the order on stage 5 of the Tour de Suisse.

The Belgian rider had entered the Tour de Suisse as a strong contender after winning the recent Tour of Norway, extending his season win total to nine. However, his hopes of victory were dealt a crushing blow on the hilly Novazzano course on Thursday afternoon.

Evenpoel began to struggle and lost contact on an out-of-category climb with over 20km to go. With the help of his teammates, he was able to rejoin the pack, but was unable to follow as the race caught fire on the Pedrinate climb with around 10km to go. [He crossed the finish line in 28th place, 2:12 behind stage winner and overall leader Alexandre Vlasov (Bora-Hansgrohe).

"Certainly the heat had something to do with it, but I felt my legs getting heavier as the laps went by.

"These were not the legs I needed for this stage. It was similar to the first stage, but I definitely had the legs there. Here I didn't have very good legs. I'm not going to say it was very bad, but it wasn't enough to keep up with the best group."

Evenepaul, who started the race with the same time as the pre-race favorites, finished 19th, 2:22 behind Vlasov, and plummeted down the overall standings.

Evenepoel did not completely rule out the possibility of a GC, but he still has a big task to recover from, even with a 25km time trial on the final day. But despite the 25km time trial on the final day, Evenpoel is still looking to make up for a major setback.

"There are still two super hard and long stages, so I'll keep fighting and giving my best. I'll also have a pretty long TT in mind," Evenpoel said.

"But I can't afford to lose any more time if I want to keep up with the GC heavyweights or do well on GC at the end of the week."