Why Remco Evenepoel ‘didn’t want to lose’ sprint to Primoz Roglic in ‘battle of wills’ at 2023 Giro d’Italia

The Belgian beat Roglic to the intermediate sprint and gained crucial bonus seconds to extend his General Classification lead over the Slovenian by a single second.

While Evenepoel’s performance only gave him a small boost in the overall standings, Eurosport’s Dan Lloyd believes it could give him a mental edge over Roglic.

“He didn’t want to be beaten,” Lloyd said.

“You could see him looking over his shoulder in the last few hundred metres towards the intermediate sprint waiting for the jump from Roglic and his team-mates, and it did eventually come from Koen Bouwman.

“Remco went immediately – he’s only taken a second on Roglic but he’s taken three on every other General Classification rider and it might seem strange to hear him say he wants to give the jersey away on tomorrow’s stage, but he still wants to get as much time as possible on his key rivals.

“It’s only rivals that he knows won’t be up there at the end of three weeks that he’s going to allow up the road tomorrow.”

When asked whether those types of moments are as much of a mental battle as they are physical, Robbie McEwen chimed in.

“It’s about the honour,” he said. “A battle of wills and to say ‘I’ve got you covered when I want to have you covered’.”

Adam Blythe added: “It’s classic Remco, though, what we spoke about in terms of he’s at 105%.

“He needs to stay calm and he needs to relax and let the other riders, if they want to go for sprints, just follow them and be like ‘yeah, I’m here don’t worry about it’ and sort of bluff them a little bit because he’s gone on and gone ‘Oh yeah, I’m here baby!’

“I don’t think he [Roglic] can afford to gift three seconds to Evenepoel, but in case of just following him and letting him get one second, I don’t think is the end of the world.

“Just give Primoz that little bit of confidence, but you’re right [in agreement with McEwen], it’s not in his nature so that’s why I don’t think he’s going to give this jersey away tomorrow.”

– – –