‘Tired’ Remco Evenepoel ‘starting to feel the effects’, expect rivals Ineos Grenadiers to pounce – Adam Blythe

Blythe said that he expect Evenepoel’s rivals – namely the Ineos Grenadiers – to try to push on and “weaken him day by day.”

Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step) made a flying start to the time trial and looked like he was going to put significant time into his general classification rivals.

However, the Belgian couldn’t maintain the pace and in the end won by just one second from Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers).

Thomas’ team-mate Tao Geoghegan Hart was just a second further back and Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) only surrendered 17 seconds to Evenepoel.

Reflecting on the stage, Evenepoel had mixed emotions.

“I think I didn’t pace it very well, I started way too fast and my second part was a really bad part,” he said.

“After the technical section I found some better legs because I could recover, but I think my first part was very good and it was the pacing plan we tried to get, but in the second part with the headwind I wasn’t feeling too well.

“So not the best result but it’s another stage win so that’s very nice, but it was not my best time trial I ever did.

“We should be happy we took the stage win and we have the pink jersey but it was a very tight one.”

Eurosport expert Dan Lloyd said on the Breakaway that the result “sets things up perfectly” for the rest of the race.

“That was a phenomenal performance from Tao Geoghegan Hart and Geraint Thomas. They will be disappointed not to take the stage win but they can take so many positives from being so close to Remco, especially given what happened on yesterday’s stage.

“He just didn’t have the legs today to do the pacing strategy, so it’s clear he’s not at 100% right now.”

Evenepoel lost time to his general classification rivals on Stage 8 as Thomas, Roglic and Geoghegan Hart all chipped away at him.

Even though he won Stage 9, Monday’s rest day may have arrived at a good time for him.

“Remco’s tired and you can see it from that,” said Eurosport expert Adam Blythe.

“Normally on a fresh day he’d be able to do it quite easily but after nine days racing he is starting to feel the effects.

“The likes of Geraint Thomas, Tao, Primoz a bit, would be like ‘it would be good if we could keep racing now and put the hurt on him a bit earlier’, but they still have a long way to go and they will be able to tire him out.

“I expect Ineos in the later days, as we have seen in the past, pushing on earlier in the climbs to try and weaken him day by day.”

The Stage 9 result moves Thomas up into second in the overall standings, 45 seconds behind Evenepoel.

Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) is in third, 47 seconds off the lead, and Geoghegan Hart is three seconds further back in fourth. Previous leader Andreas Leknessund has dropped to sixth place.

Eurosport expert Robbie McEwen said he thinks Evenepoel expected to take more time from his rivals on the time trial.

“I was looking at the body language and facial expressions from Evenepoel who despite winning that time trial didn’t have the look of what we have come used to seeing from him when he wins a stage.

“I think he expected to take a lot more time over everybody based on his opening Giro time trial. There was a hint of disappointment despite being the stage winner.”

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