5:48 pm, 27 May 2023: Time stands still, and an eerie silence falls over Monte Lussari. The crowd, thousands strong, packed tightly atop this peak, holds its collective breath. Many have come from neighboring Slovenia, waving flags and hoisting posters. They’re here because this is the day history might finally be rewritten, a long arc that began seven years earlier, on 6 May 2016.
Back then, the Giro d’Italia kicked off in Apeldoorn with a time trial framed by roaring crowds. King Willem-Alexander himself launched the race, and the Dutch golden boy, Tom Dumoulin, was the favorite. Everything was set for a Dutch celebration. But, as is often the case in cycling, someone was ready to crash the party. No one, however, expected the disruptor to be a 26-year-old former ski jumper who had been racing professionally for just three years and was at his absolute debut at a Grand Tour. That kid went by the name of Primož Roglič. In an almost flawless ride, the Slovenian stunned the world, losing to Dumoulin by a single hundredth of a second.
