Teams & Riders Everybody needs a little bit of Roglstomp in their lives

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That looked bad.

Ignoring Evenepoel, he lost time to Almeida and TGH. I can blame the TT being flat but he normally cleans those guys on any route.

He lost time in the Tirreno TT to Almeida, McNulty and Arensman though that one was purely flat. I think some people put too much faith on the fact that he is the Olympic Champion. Roglic's main strength has always been hilly and preferably more technical time-trials because he picks speed faster than others due to his explosiveness and recovers very well from those efforts. Still, I thought he would have been top5 and around 20 seconds behind Evenepoel, so not great indeed.
 
He lost time in the Tirreno TT to Almeida, McNulty and Arensman though that one was purely flat. I think some people put too much faith on the fact that he is the Olympic Champion. Roglic's main strength has always been hilly and preferably more technical time-trials because he picks speed faster than others due to his explosiveness and recovers very well from those efforts. Still, I thought he would have been top5 and around 20 seconds behind Evenepoel, so not great indeed.
Tirreno TT was his first race back and he wasn't flying that hard on the climbs there either, it wouldn't have been that much of a stretch to assume his TT would be better today.

The overall picture doesn't change that much though, he always needed to beat Evenepoel in the mountains, but if he needs to gain over 2 minutes it's gonna be a lot harder than if it would've been only 1.
 
He lost time in the Tirreno TT to Almeida, McNulty and Arensman though that one was purely flat. I think some people put too much faith on the fact that he is the Olympic Champion. Roglic's main strength has always been hilly and preferably more technical time-trials because he picks speed faster than others due to his explosiveness and recovers very well from those efforts. Still, I thought he would have been top5 and around 20 seconds behind Evenepoel, so not great indeed.

pretty much spot on. Todays could be worse than his average but not that bad cosidering the course.
 
He looked pretty terrible on the flat when we saw pictures of him.

I wonder how he will approach stage 4 and 7-8 before the TT. He might just think week 3 is where its at, or he might try to pick up some bonuses here and there.
Those are 3 stages where it's doesn't really make sense to not try something if you're feeling good, but none of them are great for an attack of more than 1-2 km from the top.
 
I wouldnt worry too much just yet, unless he is sick. Today was a solid performance.

Roglic knows how it is to be looking invincible in the Giro and losing in the final week. He knows better than anyone what could happen.

Remco is the biggest favorite now with this performance and his team will have its work cut out for them. He will deservedly win, if he is the strongest.

A lot could happen still. No need to draw any major conclusions from this. This is the Giro and anything is possible.
 
To me honestly he didn't look happy, but fake smiling and trying to get away from the interview as fast as possible. But he tried to smile just as usual. I think he does that quite a lot and that the pressure on him to keep that always happy persona is starting to weigh on him a bit :/
Well he sure looked happy to me, great dimples showing and 20 stages to go eh?
 
I don't think it's copium to say Jumbo are aiming for Rog to be in top shape in week 3. I think that's a fact. Now whether it'll work & he can even take any time at all, that's a different matter. But that's pretty much why he came in undercooked today. That & the fact a flat ITT like that is really not his forte.

And if it doesn't work out in the end, we all know this is just early season training for vamos a la playa Vuelta number 4 anyway.
 
I don't think it's copium to say Jumbo are aiming for Rog to be in top shape in week 3. I think that's a fact. Now whether it'll work & he can even take any time at all, that's a different matter. But that's pretty much why he came in undercooked today. That & the fact a flat ITT like that is really not his forte.

And if it doesn't work out in the end, we all know this is just early season training for vamos a la playa Vuelta number 4 anyway.

True that, but still I think 43 secs is a lot. IMO, I think they planned Roglic to finish within 20 secs, 30 secs max from Evenepoel.

But, I think it's a convergence of Evenepoel outperforming expectations, and Roglic underperforming expectations.

I think Evenepoel outperformed expectations by 10-15 secs, and Roglic underperformed expectations by 10-15 secs as well.
 
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True that, but still I think 43 secs is a lot. IMO, I think they planned Roglic to finish within 20 secs, 30 secs max from Evenepoel.

But, I think it's a convergence of Evenepoel outperforming expectations, and Roglic underperforming expectations.

I think Evenepoel outperformed expectations by 10-15 secs, and Roglic underperformed expectations by 10-15 secs as well.

I'd predicted a loss of 30 seconds or thereabouts but what we saw didn't surprise me.

I've also predicted an Evenepoel demolition job in this entire upcoming first week, namely in the ITT next weekend. A gap of two or three minutes over Rog isn't something I'd consider impossible on the first rest day.

But week 3 is week 3. It's hard to the point of being comical & yes, my final prediction is Rog will win this Giro. I trust Roglič knows what he's doing, i.e. whilst I understand that was first blood to Evenepoel & bravo to him, I also know Rog can win this - even when the doom & gloom is quite pronounced (& will probably get much louder after next weekend).