With the crossing of the Rubicon, Julius Caesar had shown to the world that men have the power to change the course of history, instead of just being carried away by it. And today, Remco Evenepoel tried to change the history of this Giro d’Italia. Only time will tell if he has succeeded or not, but the first impression is that today’s victory by the Belgian – using wartime jargon – might be described as “mutilated” to say the least.
All that matters, at least for the moment, is that he won the time trial and is back in the Maglia Rosa, as Andreas Leknessund did not succeed in the impossible task of defending the leadership symbol. But the news of the day is a different one, namely that not minutes flew between the favourites, as might have been expected, but only thousandths of a second. Behind Evenepoel came Geraint Thomas, distanced by just one second, and behind Geraint Thomas came Tao Geoghegan Hart, distanced by another second. In short, we are dealing with an individual time trial featuring sprint finish gaps. Quite a unique case.
