Sunday will be a time trial again and this time, on a completely flat path, we will have to understand if the balances that were outlined in Ortona will remain unchanged or if something has changed between specialists and general classification men. In the first challenge, 19,6 kilometers long, Evenepoel… has heavily beaten his rivals of the ranking and also bent Ganna's resistanceThe others each showed strengths and weaknesses, which we thought to analyze with Adriano Malori, our time trial guru.
What surprised you about Ortona?
I imagined that given the final climb, even if it wasn't tough, Evenepoel could beat Ganna. But I expected that they would reach the end of the flat stretch with Pippo in the lead or at least tied. But such an overwhelming superiority even on the plain, on a completely flat and linear course where Pippo was supposed to fly, I would never have imagined. If we look, in that first stretch he also gave little to Almeida.
How do you explain that, considering that he said he was very strong?
I don't know what's changed, but I don't see Pippo in the time trial as he was at the end of last year. Let me explain: he moves a lot more. Every 30 seconds he jumps back, does a little jump to get back on the saddle. And then I noticed something else. A time trialist always looks for the part of the track most sheltered from the wind; it's instinctive. But you always do this shift gradually, because if you do it suddenly, you lose speed and zigzag. Instead, I saw that... he kept switching from one side to the other in a sudden way, stylistically it's not what we're used to seeing.
Could it have been because he was really on the edge?
No, because I saw it that way right away. What drove me crazy about Ganna was that, even if he was going 70 miles an hour, he was a complete mess on his bike.I don't know why, I don't know if the new UCI rules had an impact and Pippo isn't comfortable on the bike anymore or if they tried to change something. But stylistically it's not the same as before.. If you looked at Evenepoel, who on paper is not at Pippo's level as a time trialist, if you put a glass on his shoulders, the water would stay still.
Does the fact that Evenepoel is so much smaller improve his aerodynamic penetration?
This is the truth. In a headwind, the advantage is exponential for someone like him, ditto in a calm situation. If the wind is favorable as it was, Ganna is favored, because he has more of a sail effect than Evenepoel.. And then the fact remains that on the flat the power/weight ratio counts for practically nothing and a taller and stronger time trialist makes many more watts.
Evenepoel was clearly ahead at the first intermediate point, he came down the cycle path without even braking and was ahead at the start of the climb…
I'm making a point, maybe I'm wrong. For a first stage, Evenepoel has already shown a condition that is too advanced in my opinion. Considering the last week and especially the last three days, with two stages like the Tre Cime di Lavaredo and the time trial, also seeing what happened in 2018 between Froome and Yates, I would have held back a little more. Line of Business it's not the Vuelta…
That?
There are more difficult stages. Here you just have to climb two steps and you are already above 2.000 metersIn my opinion, this is the reasoning that Roglic used instead. With the threat of the 2020 Planche des Belles Filles time trial, Primoz is another one who had a totally insufficient performance in Ortona.It's not normal that the Olympic champion in the time trial, which in Tokyo gave everyone a minute and a half, you arrive after Vine and Geoghegan Hart. It's okay to be late, but not so late that you mess up the clock. He had a cadence that wasn't typical of him. Hard, planted, swollen. I'd be worried...
For what?
Okay I'm late in condition to come out in the last week, though in the middle there is Campo Imperatore, where I would be afraid to take a minute from a Remco like that right away. Anyway, getting back to the topic of the time trial, I was really surprised by Tao Geoghegan Hart, who finished on a high, he arrived with a pushI said before that Almeida was my number one rival, but if nothing happens he could be the Giro's outsider.
Why?
Almeida did a good time trial, but of the two Tao is what he has already won a Giro, instead Almeida has always been "a supporting actor", someone who struggled behind the big namesTao won the Giro, he knows what it means to go fast in the final time trial wearing the jersey and under all the pressure in the world. In short, from what I saw in Trentino, he could be the real outsider.
Projecting all this onto the Cesena time trial, which is certainly longer, what can we expect?
In my opinion Ganna will win the Cesena time trial. It has the flattest path and Goofy showed us how fast he goes when he's pissed off.Like when he screwed up the world championship last year and then made good and bad times on the track with the Hour record and the pursuit world record. So in my opinion Sunday will be his day, even if he definitely won't win by a minute, that's clear. I think it'll still be a matter of seconds...
