It was more of a confirmation than a presentation. Outlines of the broad brushstrokes of the 2023 Giro d’Italia had already been circulating for weeks, and there were no surprises when the curtain was formally raised on Monday evening. With some 70km of total time trialling, including two flat tests in the first week, this is a course that seems to be pitched squarely at encouraging Remco Evenepoel (QuickStep-AlphaVinyl) to return to the race next May.
Evenepoel, currently enjoying his honeymoon in the Maldives, was not among the riders suited and booted for the occasion in Milan’s Teatro Lirico on Monday, but the World Champion’s was the name on everybody’s lips. When a group of reporters gathered around race director Mauro Vegni after the lights went up, the issue of Evenepoel’s possible (probable?) participation was raised almost immediately.
Vegni was expecting as much, of course, and his answer was precisely the kind of response a race director is obliged to trot out in such circumstances. It’s all part of the theatre.
“It might be that he comes, but I’m also a bit tired of talking about who will and won’t come. That’s not cycling,” Vegni said. “Riders come and go, but the Giro is always there, like the Tour and the Vuelta. It’s the Giro that makes riders great. Whoever is there and whoever wins is a great rider for me.”
There is undeniable truth in that assessment. The Giro is always an occasion, regardless of the field. The winner’s name endures in the roll of honour, while the absentees are soon forgotten. Even in 2020, when the delayed calendar was rewritten entirely on ASO’s terms, a Giro light on established stars still produced the most compelling spectacle of the pandemic-compressed season.
And yet, and yet. There has always been a symbiotic relationship between cycling’s great races and its best riders. The race may make the riders, but the riders make the race too. Giro organisers have always known this, as La Gazzetta dello Sport pointed out on Tuesday morning: “Like the patron Vincenzo Torriani used to say, the route is the canvas, but the riders do the painting.”
In 1930, Alfredo Binda’s dominance was such that he was paid to stay away from the Giro. These days, the Giro organisers have no such luxury. Last May, Vegni made no secret of his desire to attract Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) to his race, and the Monte Lussari time trial on the Slovenian border seemed designed with him in mind.
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