Roglic wins a designed Giro with a blindfold

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Primoz Roglic has won this Sunday a Giro designed with a blindfold and of which only a final time trial will be remembered that has entered the golden book of cycling thanks to the superb performance of the 33-year-old Slovenian runner. The victory in the Italian round adds to the three victories achieved in the Vuelta in 2023 in which he has prevailed in all the stage tests in which he has participated. Before raising the most beautiful trophy among the three three-week races in Rome, he had won the Tirreno-Adriatico and the Volta a Catalunya.

His feat in the final ‘time trial’ should not make us forget a Giro disputed between too many stages in which nothing happened, without offensives for the general classification, with excessive sprints, breakaways to give and take, with Spanish cyclists in absolute anonymity and run with a bet that the organization of the test repeats year after year, although it is turning into a disaster.

Being the toughest of the three stage rounds does not mean that it is the most competitive. Putting all the hardness together in the last four stages causes the riders to save more energy than expected. Placing the toughest time trial ever held in a major round for the penultimate day meant that the two favorites chosen for the race (roglic and Geraint Thomas) will renounce previous attacks and play for victory one day after finishing the test.

This formula is repeated year after year. In 2022 similar happened. The Giro was resolved in the final three kilometers of the penultimate stage, in the Marmolada. Although it is true that they were very unlucky with the weather (cold and rain) that marked the second week, the mistake has caused a bland Italian round where the favorites, including Remco Evenepoel until his withdrawal due to covid, decided to give up the mountains and play the general under the sound of the stopwatch.

And that cannot be repeated anymore because, always excepting the exhibition of roglic in the final ‘chrono’, any classic or weekly round of 2023 has been much more intense, vibrant, exciting and even competitive than this Giro that ended this Sunday with a sprint victory at the Roman Forum in Mark Cavendishin the year of his retirement.

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The final rankings.

Dull Spaniards

Seven Spaniards started the Giro and six have finished it due to the abandonment of Oscar Rodriguez by fall. The role has been secondary and without options to fight for a stage victory in the leaks that were formed. Since bilbao hair won two stages in 2019 the Spanish drought has been constant despite the fact that last year Michael Landa He finished the test in third position.

The best classified has been Luis Leon Sanchez (24th), 48 minutes from roglic and the only one who achieved it less than an hour from the ‘pink jersey’. Jonathan Lastra (35º) he did it almost an hour and a half; Carlos Verónat (47º), at two hours, jose joaquin rojas (80º), three; Diego Pablo Seville (96º), to four, and Albert Torres (123rd), to five.



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