Two more exciting days: Jumbo-Visma is counting on a weak moment with Geraint Thomas, but will that happen?

What was up with Primoz Roglic on the Passo della Crosetta, the first climb of the day yesterday? While three of his teammates set the pace at the front, he seemed to hang on the stretcher at the back of the peloton. At Eurosport, man on the bike Adam Blythe called that “mind-boggling”.

After the earlier loss of time on Monte Bondone, the alarm bells suddenly started ringing, but that was not necessary. Teammate Michel Hessmann, a German who speaks perfect Dutch after three Jumbo seasons, finally explained what was going on: “Primoz certainly had no problems on that climb. But when you’re at the front of the pack, you have to do everything, always be in the wheel. While it eventually comes together again. At the back you don’t have to do those small sprints for position and you can save ten watts left and right. It is a risk, but Primoz also has the team that can bring him forward again.”

Attack on the final climb

On the final climb to Val di Zoldo, Roglic showed his true face: an attack that only Geraint Thomas could answer. For Joao Almeida it was mainly damage limitation, in the wheel of teammate Jay Vine. Almeida eventually lost twenty-one seconds to Roglic, who again jumps to second place in the standings.

Jumbo sports director Marc Reef obviously spoke of a good day: “We will keep trying attacks like this. Thomas has shown himself to be very strong, but it only takes one moment of weakness to crack him. We will fight for that.”

The bad news: Thomas rarely if ever has such a moment of weakness in grand tours in which he was allowed to ride for himself. Since he put himself on the map as a tour rider in the 2015 Tour – fifteenth as a servant for Froome -, it can go either way in a three-week race: either he is involved in a crash or he finishes on the podium.

The list is quite impressive. The 2018 Tour: won. The 2019 Tour: second behind teammate Egan Bernal. The Tour of 2022: third after Vingegaard and Pogacar. In the grand tours where he didn’t get a result, there was always a clearly demonstrable reason. A shoulder dislocation in the Tour of 2021. A heavy crash over a water bottle in the Giro of 2020. In 2017 he had to give up in both the Giro and the Tour after falls that he himself could not help. Once an officer was not paying attention, the other time Rafa Majka took him to the ground. Finally, in the 2015 Vuelta, Thomas finished 69th, despite a fracture in his foot, of course suffered in a crash.

Thomas celebrates birthday

The moral of the story: if Thomas is spared from bad luck – which he has succeeded in doing so far – then he will not have any weak moments in three weeks. The chance that he suddenly loses minutes today on the way to Tre Cime di Lavaredo is very small. “For now I am the most consistent rider in this Giro,” Thomas agreed. “But we keep our feet on the ground.”

The Welshman celebrated his thirty-seventh birthday yesterday. He was determined to celebrate properly: “I’m going to get drunk. Lots of wine, lots of beer. Stay up until four o’clock. (laughs) No, it will be the same as always: a plate of rice, maybe a piece of cake, but definitely an early bed.”