Remco Evenepoel

Remco Evenepoel crashed in the Giro d’Italia on Wednesday due to a stray dog. The Belgian seems to have escaped with a fright and is back on his bike.

Has Remco Evenepoel learned from his competitors that every second can matter in a grand tour?

“We were just at the front,” he put into perspective in the flash interview. “We wanted to take the lead on the descent, because the roads were dangerous because of the rain.”

“I saw that Jumbo-Visma was behind us and it didn’t take too much energy. When the seconds are there, you don’t have to be afraid of that.”

“I take a second on Primoz and 3 seconds on the rest. That’s good after a fairly quiet day with a hectic final.”

“It was not the plan”, he added to Renaat Schotte. “But Klaas (Lodewyck, sports director) had told me that I could participate if the classification men wanted to go for it.”

“It’s better to take a second than to give one. It was not like that sprint against Egan Bernal in 2021. It was nothing crazy, the ideal scenario.”

Tomorrow we will have the first uphill finish, although the finish is after a flat spur of 3 kilometers.

“You can look at it as an uphill finish,” the leader clearly states. “If you are 10 seconds behind at the top, you are also behind at the finish.”

“It will be quite tough. I know the stage: it is not the most difficult, but it will be a first test. If you are not good, you lose time.”

And will Evenepoel also consciously lose the pink jersey tomorrow? “We expect a long fight before flight.”

“It may well be that another team wants to go for the stage victory and then I will not lose the jersey.”

“The ideal scenario is to be able to hand over the pink jersey, but if it is not the case, then we are not angry about it.”

“It’s a leader’s jersey and I’m never late at the hotel. I can only enjoy myself.”

Even though the first 80 kilometers were almost exclusively uphill to a peak of 1,500 meters, the heat and lack of wind did not invite the Argentinian crowd to a spectacular festival.

Veteran Oscar Sevilla (46) gave another sign of life in the breakaway of the day, but after the endless hump, the sprinter teams joined forces.

The calculations were out of the book, attackers had no chance, just like yesterday.

Soudal-Quick Step was now able to roll out the red carpet, or at least to the last hectometres.

After craftsmanship of Remco Evenepoel Michael Morkov was pinned to the crush barriers by Danny van Poppel.

Fabio Jakobsen had to make a detour, but the sea opened just in time.

The Dutchman came out as the winner of four in a row with Fernando Gaviria as the closest attacker.

Sam Bennett couldn’t answer his pilot’s trick and finished 4th.