In our podcast with Stefan Everts, the ten-time world champ discussed how he can relate to the pressure his son Liam Everts is under – but that he is very happy with Liam’s progression and especially that podium is Oss at the last EMX250 round!
“The pressure was extremely high,” admitted Stefan on his own career. “My dad tried to teach me and coach me the right way, that wasn’t easy between the two of us, we had a lot of arguments, it wasn’t easy. Now, I see a little bit the same with Liam, he also needs to deal with that pressure and he also puts in a lot of hard work but because everything is so well organised around him, he has no other things on his mind expect perform at his best and that brings even more pressure to himself.
“That first podium in Oss for him was so important, just to prove to himself what he is doing is good. He just needs to let it go a little bit more and just enjoy and have fun. It’s not so easy, it’s easy said but it’s so difficult done, I can understand better than anyone else because I went through the same thing and for him it’s even harder. his father is ten time world champion, my father was only four time world champion. Not an easy situation, we are also working with a mental coach, somebody who is a little outside the sport and sees it from a different point of view. We are doing that for quite a while now and he feels good with it. Only what i want to see is that he performs at his best. Stepping in your father’s footsteps is not easy.
“I’m actually very nervous for each race he does,” Everts admitted! “It hasn’t been an easy season. So far we have done a lot of pre-season races, we have travelled at lot -trying to give him that experience, which he still doesn’t have. He is only 16, we haven’t been doing a lot, last year he got injured after Matterley when he got the red plate, then he had the wrist injury so we missed another season, important experience. Now we are another class up, you have some tough riders in there, boys with a lot of experience, much stronger than him but he managed to do good. I was so, so happy especially for him the work that he puts in every day. Just in general I was happy to see he can do it. I am convinced he can do it but if it’s not on black and white in paper then it’s not been proven. Let’s hope he can take off now and have that confidence now to have more better races like that.”
So will we see Liam in the MX2 world championship next year? “I think it’s too soon to make that decision now,” Stefan said. “It’s for sure an option but lets see how the season goes. If he can maintain that top five top three results for the rest of the season and see where we end in the championship and then see what the opportunities are for the next season. We are a running our private team, we good support for KTM and the rest we do with our sponsors. that’s still okay to do in the European but to go overseas and do GPs, it means the budget would need to improve a lot and I don’t know if we can do that. So maybe it means we do another year of EMX, it all depends.”
To see or listen to the full interview with Stefan go here for iTunes or go to Spotify or Youtube below:
Article: Jonathan McCready
Images: Gino Maes
