The whispers that had been percolating through the Giro d’Italia caravan all week began to amplify on Saturday morning. According to the rumour mill, Primož Roglič had tested positive for COVID-19, and in the latest version of the story, he had even told a GC rival as much in the middle of Friday’s stage to Gran Sasso d’Italia.
At the start of stage 8 in Terni, however, a quick scan of the bikes lined up outside the Jumbo-Visma bus showed the machine bearing Roglič’s number 141 prepared as normal for the day ahead. When Cyclingnews caught up with directeur sportif Addy Engels, he insisted that he hadn’t even been aware of the murmurs in the first place.
“To be honest you surprise me with this rumour, because I don’t know anything about this rumour,” Engels said. “Is it on the internet? There is no issue.” In private, another staff member was more succinct: “It’s bullshit.”
On the road to Fossombrone later in the afternoon, Roglič certainly showed no signs of infirmity. His Jumbo-Visma team were prominent in leading the pink jersey group in the finale, laying the groundwork for the Slovenian’s firm acceleration on the second of two ascents of I Cappuccini.
Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) tried and failed to match his pace there, and only the Ineos duo of Geraint Thomas and Tao Geoghegan Hart could scramble across to him over the top of the climb with 6km to go. Driven all the way by Roglič, they would reach the finish 14 seconds up on Evenepoel.
The effort sees Roglič reduce his deficit on Evenepoel in the GC standings to 30 seconds ahead of Sunday’s pivotal time trial to Cesena. The time gained was the story of the day on the bike, but the curious case of the Roglič rumour continued to colour conversation off it.
As he warmed down outside the Ineos bus, Thomas revealed that he was the rider who had been informed by Roglič of his supposed COVID-19 case the previous afternoon. “Not bad for a guy with covid,” he said of Roglič’s performance. “He told me that yesterday, that he had covid. So I said, ‘Stay away from me, then.’”
Thomas, like everybody else, couldn’t tell if Roglič’s admission was serious or not.
“He always says he’s got bad legs,” the Welshman said, breaking into a passable Roglič impression. “‘Ah, the race is hard, eh. This is too hard, eh, I go home.’ And then he goes and wins by ten minutes. Who knows with him, it’s all mind games. [João] Almeida said to me he had…
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