For the team presentation before the start of the Giro, Remco Evenepoel even rolled onto the stage wearing a mask. In the following days he was nevertheless infected with Corona.
Photo: imago/Massimo Paolone
Remco Evenepoel had just stood happily in the pink confetti rain. The – hopefully recycled – paper will be regularly distributed over the current leader of the Tour of Italy. Evenepoel beamed because, as expected, he had put on the most coveted shirt, which he also wanted to bring home at the end of May. He had made it more exciting than expected: after 35 kilometers of time trial, he was only nine hundredths of a second ahead of second-placed Geraint Thomas. But it was easily enough to take over the pink leadership jersey again. Previous leader Andreas Leknessund lost more than a minute to Evenepoel.
The true balance of power was thus restored. Because the world champion from Belgium was also the muscle man par excellence in the peloton throughout the first week of the Giro d’Italia. He had won the opening time trial brilliantly. He beat the specialists and took 43 and 55 seconds off his immediate competitors in the overall standings, Primož Roglič and Thomas. That was obvious. A few journalists have accused Evenepoel of “destroying” his rivals. In the days that followed, his dominance continued. He cheerfully dueled with Roglič in intermediate sprints – and won them too. The Belgian also stayed ahead of all his direct rivals in the first hill sprint on the Gran Sasso.
He also put away setbacks as if they were nothing. After he fell twice on the 5th stage, once because of a stray dog, the second time because of his own inattention, he demonstrated how great his condition is by ball juggling before the start the next day. Evenepoel snapped up a football in the club colors of the new Italian champions in Naples and showed that he had not been called up to his country’s youth national team for nothing when he was younger. And his first small defeat on Saturday, when he lost 14 seconds to Roglič and Thomas, was followed by Evenepoel’s second stage win in Cesena.
The world champion was clearly the boss of this Giro d’Italia. But then came the end of Covid. A shock. Evenepoel did not hide his disappointment. »I am very sad that I have to leave the race. As part of the team’s health protocol, I had a routine test done, which unfortunately came back positive. My experience here was really special and I’ve been looking forward to the next two weeks of fighting,” he shared.
That joy is gone now. Evenepoel started the journey home. His team Soudal Quick Step, which was completely geared towards him, now has to regroup. His helpers have nothing to do with the overall ranking. At best, they can still compete for stage wins.
Primož Roglič is less likely to be the new dominator. So far, the Slovenian has only been moderately successful in his actual parade discipline, the time trial. “I’m a slow starter,” he alluded to the time trial on Sunday. There he was already 31 seconds behind Evenepoel at the first split, but later he was able to almost halve it to 17 seconds. Overall, it is also noticeable that the Slovenian has to get going first.
He sent a warning with his attack on Saturday. He surprised Evenepoel but couldn’t prevent a British duo catching up to him: Geraint Thomas and Tao Geoghegan Hart from the Ineos team are now literally embracing him in the general classification. As the new overall leader, Thomas is two seconds ahead of Roglič, Hart three seconds behind him. Your team is by far the strongest of the tour – three drivers are in the top ten, five in the top 20. Ineos can thus play several trump cards and put the Slovenian opponent in the pincers in the coming weeks.
For the German racing team Bora-hansgrohe, the first Giro days were in the lower range of expectations. Whenever things got fast, the captain duo Alexander Vlasow and Lennard Kämna lost a bit of time. That was to be expected in the time trials. The Russian was even satisfied with his performance in the fight against the clock. “I rode evenly and kept my rhythm,” he said after the time trial on Sunday. Overall he lost 63 seconds to Thomas, to Evenepoel it would have been 85 seconds. The German co-captain Kämna was even a minute slower than his teammate. But they haven’t given up hope for more. »We now have the difficult part of the Giro behind us. Now are the days that should suit us better,” said coach Sylwester Szmyd on Sunday.
It is completely uncertain how the renewed outbreak of corona in the field of drivers will change the classification. Several riders, including Bora pro Giovanni Aleotti and Ineos man Filippo Ganna, had to leave the Giro before Evenepoel because of positive tests. Turbulence is programmed further.
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,document,’script’,
‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
fbq(‘init’, ‘1860296947675658’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);
