Remco Evenepoel punched the air as he wheeled through the finish area in Cesena, but it was almost as though he was trying to convince himself this had been more of a victory than a defeat. As expected, the Belgian claimed the stage 9 time trial of the Giro d’Italia and reclaimed the maglia rosa, but his winning margin was tighter than anyone had anticipated beforehand.
The 35km test was supposed to be the day Evenepoel placed a sizeable down payment on the final overall victory, but the predicted channelling of Miguel Indurain in Luxembourg never materialised. Instead, Evenepoel had to produce a late, late surge to deny Geraint Thomas (Ineos) stage victory by a single second, while Tao Geoghegan Hart (Ineos) and Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) also limited their losses to two and 17 seconds, respectively.
As the Giro breaks for its first rest day, Evenepoel holds a 45-second lead over Thomas, with Roglic and Geoghegan Hart also within 50 seconds of his maglia rosa. Far from ending in Cesena, this Giro has only just begun.
“I think the pacing plan of my time trial wasn’t good,” Evenepoel said. “I started too fast and the second part of my time trial wasn’t good. My first part was good, but in the second part, with the headwind, I didn’t feel good. It’s sure that it’s not the result I wanted to do, but I’ve won the stage, so that’s good. But it’s clear that it’s not the best time trial I’ve done in my career.”
Evenepoel had dominated his rivals in the short, opening time trial to Ortona last week, where he covered the course more than two seconds per kilometre quicker than Thomas, Geoghegan Hart and Roglic. There were few surprises when he covered the first 13km of the Cesena time trial 11 seconds than Thomas, but he admitted afterwards that he had been overly enthusiastic in the opening phase.
“I think I was a bit too excited and too motivated to start. I knew I was the last one of the big GC favourites to start, so I just wanted to go as fast as possible to the first time check,” said Evenepoel, whose lead over Thomas was slashed to two seconds by the 23km mark. By the final check with 6km to go, he would fall behind the Welshman and Geoghegan Hart.
“I felt very good at the start, but then when I turned left it was a crosswind, and I struggled a bit with the wind. My legs were heavier there. I should have maybe pushed between 10 and 15 watts less in the start because in the end it was a 40-minute time trial, which is very long in today’s cycling, so it wasn’t…
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