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Past the finish on Fossombrone’s Viale dei Martiri della Resistenza, Remco Evenepoel‘s frustration was palpable. The time lost to Primož Roglič on stage 8 of the Giro d’Italia didn’t appear to annoy him nearly as much as the manner of its concession.
When Roglič attacked on the steepest portion of I Cappuccini, his rear wheel seemed to flicker invitingly within Evenepoel’s grasp. The Belgian couldn’t fight his instinct to reach out and touch the flame, but instead of snuffing out Roglič’s attack, he only burnt up his own resources.
A stalling Evenepoel was even caught and passed by the Ineos duo of Geraint Thomas and Tao Geoghegan Hart near the top of the climb as they bridged across to Roglič. That trio of dangermen would drop into Fossombrone with a 14-second lead over Evenepoel and the rest of the overall contenders.
On crossing the line, Evenepoel was flagged down and asked to wait at the barriers by the podium until it was certain that he had not divested Andreas Leknessund (Team DSM) of the maglia rosa. Leknessund would do enough to retain pink from Evenepoel by eight seconds, but Roglič is now just 30 seconds behind the world champion.
As Evenepoel waited for the all-clear to proceed to his bus, he stood swigging silently on a recovery drink. When he eventually rode off, teammate Mattia Cattaneo drew up alongside him to drape a consoling arm over his shoulder.
By the time Evenepoel began to warm down on his time trial bike outside the Soudal-QuickStep bus a few minutes later, however, his irritation seemed to be easing with each rev of the pedals. When a cluster of reporters was invited forward to hear his thoughts on the day’s action, he was already couching the experience as a lesson learned.
“I took 43 seconds a few days ago, so why should I be unhappy?” Evenepoel said. “There are good days and bad days. Today, just before the climb, I told my teammate Cattaneo that I had sore legs, and if the guys went flat out, it would be hard to follow.
“Everybody exploded on the climbs, and it was only the guys from Ineos who paced it well. I think I made a little error in trying to follow Roglič’s rhythm and I blew up a bit. But 14 seconds isn’t a lot.”
As he toggled between Dutch, French and English, Evenepoel elaborated on the nature of his mistake. Despite his foreboding before the final haul up I Cappuccini, he opted to respond to Roglič’s searing acceleration.
Perhaps his choice was informed by the way he had outsprinted Roglič at Gran Sasso…
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