Giro d’Italia makes play for Remco Evenepoel with time trial-heavy route

It was more of a confirmation than a presentation. Outlines of the broad brushstrokes of the 2023 Giro d’Italia had already been circulating for weeks, and there were no surprises when the curtain was formally raised on Monday evening. With some 70km of total time trialling, including two flat tests in the first week, this is a course that seems to be pitched squarely at encouraging Remco Evenepoel (QuickStep-AlphaVinyl) to return to the race next May.

Evenepoel, currently enjoying his honeymoon in the Maldives, was not among the riders suited and booted for the occasion in Milan’s Teatro Lirico on Monday, but the World Champion’s was the name on everybody’s lips. When a group of reporters gathered around race director Mauro Vegni after the lights went up, the issue of Evenepoel’s possible (probable?) participation was raised almost immediately.

Vegni was expecting as much, of course, and his answer was precisely the kind of response a race director is obliged to trot out in such circumstances. It’s all part of the theatre.

“It might be that he comes, but I’m also a bit tired of talking about who will and won’t come. That’s not cycling,” Vegni said. “Riders come and go, but the Giro is always there, like the Tour and the Vuelta. It’s the Giro that makes riders great. Whoever is there and whoever wins is a great rider for me.”

There is undeniable truth in that assessment. The Giro is always an occasion, regardless of the field. The winner’s name endures in the roll of honour, while the absentees are soon forgotten. Even in 2020, when the delayed calendar was rewritten entirely on ASO’s terms, a Giro light on established stars still produced the most compelling spectacle of the pandemic-compressed season.

And yet, and yet. There has always been a symbiotic relationship between cycling’s great races and its best riders. The race may make the riders, but the riders make the race too. Giro organisers have always known this, as La Gazzetta dello Sport pointed out on Tuesday morning: “Like the patron Vincenzo Torriani used to say, the route is the canvas, but the riders do the painting.”

In 1930, Alfredo Binda’s dominance was such that he was paid to stay away from the Giro. These days, the Giro organisers have no such luxury. Last May, Vegni made no secret of his desire to attract Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) to his race, and the Monte Lussari time trial on the Slovenian border seemed designed with him in mind.

Once Pogacar surrendered his Tour de France title in July, however, it was clear that his Giro debut would not come in 2023, and there’s no guarantee that Jumbo-Visma would release Primoz Roglic from Tour duty to ride the corsa rosa either. Jonas Vingegaard will obviously defend his Tour title, while for Ineos Grenadiers, Egan Bernal’s focus for now remains on returning to full fitness after his horrific crash in January.

That leaves Evenepoel as the most bankable of the potentially available stars. Even before his Vuelta a España and World Championships victories, his very presence at the Giro would have been box office. Now, after his feats of strength in Spain and Wollongong, the value of his participation would be stratospheric. Much of the Giro route may have been sketched out before then, but Vegni certainly wasn’t going to dial down the time trialling kilometres after watching Evenepoel’s exhibition in Spain.

It helps that QuickStep-AlphaVinyl manager Patrick Lefevere seems keen for his rider to line out at the Giro in 2023 rather than go directly to the Tour to take on Pogacar and Vingegaard, and the configuration of this route won’t have changed his mind. Evenepoel will want to see the Tour course before formally committing, but this Giro presents an obvious chance to produce an encore of his Vuelta performance.

The route

The flat 18km time trial to Ortona on stage 1 should give Evenepoel an early advantage, and he shouldn’t be troubled by the early summit finishes at Lago Laceno and Campo Imperatore. The stage 9 time trial to Cesena, meanwhile, is some 30km in length. If he replicates his display from the Alicante time trial at the Vuelta, he could enter the second half of this Giro with an imposing lead, just as he did in Spain last September.

Defending Giro champion Jai Hindley smiled when asked his opinion on the number of time trials on the route – “That’s probably three more than I would like” – but there are still enough high mountains in the latter part of the course to offer succour to the climbers, starting with the passage over the Grand Saint Bernard en route to Crans Montana on stage 13.

Stage 15 to Bergamo looks something like a miniature Il Lombardia, while the final week begins with a summit finish on Monte Bondone. As ever, the most demanding days are stacked near the end of the race. A mountain stage to Val di Zoldo is followed by the Dolomite tappone to Tre Cime di Lavaredo. The third and final time trial on stage 20, meanwhile, is a stiff mountain test up Monte Lussari.

Bora-Hansgrohe directeur sportif Enrico Gasparotto reckoned this to be a Giro “of two halves.” The two early time trials might allow Evenepoel to build an early buffer, but Gasparotto still reckoned the mountainous second half would weigh more heavily on the final outcome.

“At the Vuelta, Remco made the difference in the first part. I think if he approaches this in the same way, there’ll be a point where he has an advantage and then he just has to think about defending himself in the final part,” Gasparotto told Cyclingnews in Milan. “But I’m always convinced that the Giro can be decided or turned on its head in the last week. It depends on what riders are there in the line-up.”

That picture will become clearer in the weeks and months ahead, and Evenepoel is not the only man with a time trialling pedigree who could be persuaded to start. Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) has suggested he might tackle the Giro in 2023, and RCS Sport will obviously hope Thomas’ teammate Filippo Ganna will appear, while João Almeida seems likely to lead the line for UAE Team Emirates.

On Tuesday morning, meanwhile, Het Laatste Nieuws suggested that a more left-field contender might be warming to the idea of making his Giro debut, noting that the time trial-heavy route lends itself to Wout van Aert’s skills. Van Aert and Evenepoel’s co-existence in Belgian cycling hasn’t always been smooth, and therein lies the appeal for RCS. The route and the riders have always made the Giro – and so do the rivalries.