Giro d’Italia Analysis

Primoz Roglic exorcises his demons in the final mountain TT and wins the Maglia Rosa

I didn’t bother writing a second week recap because there wasn’t much to write home about. Overall, this was an extremely disappointing race. I’m not the first, and will not be the last, to make that observation. In general, people like GC action. And this Giro offered almost none of it.

There was a single road stage won by the GC group (taken by Joao Almeida). Breakaways, letdown sprint stages, and bad weather dominated the race. There really wasn’t much of note happening.

The final day of real action was the mountain time trial on stage 20, which included a false-flat run-in to a ludicrously steep mountain. Geraint Thomas was in the lead with 24 seconds on Primoz Roglic and Joao Almeida a minute behind. It seemed like a two-horse race, with Thomas in the advantage.

Roglic gassed the flat section before switching bikes and starting the climb. He looked good, but due to poor production, we did not see many side-by-side shots of him and Geraint Thomas with GPS tracking indicating the time differences. Thomas looked okay for most of the climb, too.

My heart stopped when Roglic rode over a huge pothole and dropped his chain. I did not realize it at the time, but there just happened to be a single fan on a remote part of the climb that gave him a push after he put the chain back on, and that fan was a former teammate of his on the Slovenian ski jumping team!

In the end, this mechanical incident, which I wholly believed would cost the Slovenian the Giro (and once again bring forth all the memories of nightmarish ends to stage races in all of our hearts) would not matter. Roglic absolutely smashed the final few kilometers of the climb while Thomas cracked.

Primoz Roglic had won the Giro d’Italia, by a minuscule 14 seconds, in dramatic fashion and the fans (thousands wielding the Slovenian flag) hailed their hero as I shed a few tears of joy in awe of the spectacle. Geraint Thomas, the classiest man in the peloton, individually congratulated every rider on Jumbo-Visma for their collective victory. It was a beautiful moment in sport.

Roglic is not my favorite rider, but I will almost always cheer for him. He has had so many heartbreaks and he deserves many more big victories in his career, particularly the Tour de France.

Speaking of which, it is that time of year again. As I posted on my Strava the day after the Giro ended, only six days separates the Corsa Rosa from the Dauphine. It is really time to start dreaming of the Tour de France. 21 days in July. Will Roglic parachute in to help Jonas challenge Pogacar? Yes or no, we have an epic battle on our hands.

Let’s put this Giro behind us and be grateful that Tadej Pogacar exists and will ride with Panache in the biggest race.