In the past stage races, the Ineos block always had to make peace with the crumbs due to the omnipotence of Jumbo-Visma and UAE, but in the Basque Country the British were keen on a statement in the technical prologue with some devilish molehills.
Omar Fraile, Ben Tulett, Adam Yates and Geraint Thomas: in that order they relieved each other in the hot seat.
The differences were tiny and kamikaze Thomas had proved that taking risks paid off.
Rémi Cavagna, though not the best mate, had imprinted that message well and took over.
But in the end they would have to humbly bow before two time trial wizards.
Thomas’ prediction – “Evenepoel and Roglic are still under 10 minutes” – came true wonderfully.
Remco Evenepoel crushed all times on the nod and at the finish was no less than 11 seconds faster than his French teammate.
Evenepoel had scraped all the scraps from his body and had a half-second bonus over challenger Primoz Roglic at the hillside intermediate point.
He was from another planet completely in the second part: his backlog was reversed into a lead of 5 seconds.
“I knew it was going to be a difficult time trial with some technical parts. I did everything I could and went as quickly as possible,” Evenepoel said.
“There was 1 rider faster than me. Of course I am a bit disappointed, because I would have liked to have won. But I am confident that there will be opportunities in the coming week.”
With red cheeks Primoz Roglic beamed after his clear time trial. “I just had the legs for it,” he smiled. “This was crazy. I really like racing here.”
“It was a super technical time trial with a lot of corners, but as I said, my legs felt good.”
Roglic is already putting the competition at a disadvantage. “This was an effort of 10 minutes. So the differences are not that bad. But it is always better to have a head start,” he concluded with his son on his arm.
