Remco Evenepoel lead at 2023 Giro d’Italia ‘is a tiny gap’ – Robbie McEwen says on The Breakaway

Robbie McEwen played down the significance of Remco Evenepoel’s time trial triumph at the opening stage of the Giro d’Italia.

Evenepoel opened up a 22-second lead at the top of the general classification with speculation that he has come to Italy in dominant form, and may not be overhauled over the course of the next few weeks.

The season’s first Grand Tour is a chance for the biggest names in cycling to put down a marker with the Tour de France and Vuelta a Espana yet to come.

However, McEwen told Eurosport’s The Breakaway that people should not read too much into the lead with so much racing still to come.

“We put it into context of yesterday’s time trial, barely 20 kilometres, 43 seconds is a big gap,” McEwen said with regard to Evenepoel’s lead over big rival Primoz Roglic. “But 43 seconds in the context of 3,500 km and 21 stages of racing, and the mountain stages to come, it’s a tiny gap.

“On the road on a climb, that gap translates to a few hundred metres. That’s just nothing, it’s not a lead where you’d say it’s all over, race for second.

“It’s a lot of damage on just 20km but the race is very long, and that’s why Primoz Roglic is still very upbeat about his own chances.”

Adam Blythe, however, thought the early success was ominous.

He explained: “Anything can happen in a race, for me there will be a worry. There’s going to be another time trial and if Remco is anything like he was, he’s going to take a minute on a longer time trial. From history, seeing what we saw yesterday.

“So if you take that, that’s an extra minute and 40, and in the mountains, we know Remco is good in the first two weeks. If you look at the Vuelta, in the first two weeks he was able to distance riders more and more, and if we go by that, he’s going to be able to take three minutes, three and a half minutes, if we go off a day of racing – which is hard to do.

“Three and a half minutes is a lot.”

McEwen countered that he expects other riders such as Roglic to improve in the coming weeks, adding: “Would be a lot but he’s come in hot and Roglic has not, and he’ll be getting better and better.“

Blythe suggested otherwise.

“I think Roglic is coming in hot. He’s been in altitude camps, he’s been away for ages. He’s gone to a lot of training camps,” he said.

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