Ironically, all shall be revealed very soon and this argument will be a bit obsolete. But I guess that’s precisely why people here invest so much into supporting their claims. Because “I told you so” moment will be spectacular come Zoncolan
And that's the moment when it becomes a little bit complicated. He was completely off the bike at the beginning of the year for 6-7 weeks and even longer of riding outside. The injury has definitely still some impact on his performance - strength imbalances etc. We also heard he had some problems with the position on his bike because of it. Considering all of these, his preparation for Giro was so far from perfect that even if he fails on the big climbs or any other moment during next 2 weeks, we still won't be justified to say "ok, now we finally have an obvious evidence that Remco is far from being an elite climber or generally GT contender, end of story".
IMHO we need to wait at least for his next GT to make any legitimate long-term conclusions about him as a GC rider. His shape is surely not at the level it could be if he hadn't crashed and had a regular, undisturbed preparation period.
Saying that, what he's shown during the last week, already exceeded any of my excpectations. Honestly, before the start of the Giro, I was very sceptical generally about the decision of Remco riding this race at all, with lack of preparation, coming straight out of injury etc. And obviously more sceptical seeing him amongst the pre-race favourites. And so were most of the cycling fans I suppose (maybe not inculde biggest Remco-hyped ones). On the other hand, I can't belive DQS would make him start the Giro and put in the leader's seat if his training numbers and other indicators hadn't been good enough to make them 100% sure he's ready to fight for the win.
For now, we could say that he's without a doubt in a GT-winning shape (ofc we haven't had any proper mountains yet and I do not exclude he can falter 3rd week) and that's after having just 2 months of regular preparation period, without a single race in his legs and after a serious injury (btw as much as I know, pro riders are able to get back to race-fitness quite fast and 2 months of quality training is enough to be in a kind of decent shape but for 99,9% of them definitely not in a GT-winning one).
And that's an unquestionable reason to call Remco an exceptional talent. Also considering this, we have every right to expect that his next GT performances could be only superior to this year's Giro (which is quite a scary concept if he's actually going to win this one
).