I think a positive from this stage that fans and detractors are overlooking is Evenepoel still won the stage and gained time on everyone. Now, it was certainly not the amount of time that he would have liked nor am I sure did he expect to be this fatigued after the fact. But whatever the reason; crashes, illness, fatigue, and/or form dropping he still in the moment of feeling all of that won. While that may not come into play this Giro, it could in future GTs of everything going against you but you knowing you can mentally push on to overcome it. We’ve already seen a great champion crumble after finding out how much time he was losing in a time trial.
I think context here is everything, in that winning alone was not a sign of victory. He had hoped to come out with 2+ minutes on his main GC rivals, to only find himself less than 1 minute ahead. And considering the time gained in the opening TT, with then getting dropped on a cat 4 climb yesterday, it demonstrates he has clearly experienced a drop in form, which you would not have expected only 9 stages in, except for the crashes (and/or illness?). He looked absolutely wrecked in the photo Lequack posted. I'm not saying Thomas looked fresh as a daisy after his effort, but compared to Evenepoel yes. The issue, of course, is that Remco now can't just defend in the mountains alla Indurain, but has to be aggressive; only he seems spent. And the next few stages look to be pretty miserable weather wise, which isn't helpful to recovery. I'll withhold a final verdict till after his ride on Crans Montagna. On the surface of things, however, he will need to get out of what appears to be a problematical slump if he has any real chance of winning this Giro. To further complicate matters for the Belgian, moreover, is that his team doesn't seem at a high enough level to support him on the big climbs. This is just an honest assessment of how things realistically look going into the first rest day.
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