At the beginning of the week, a photo of Primoz Roglic’s legs began to run on the networks until it went viral. In the foreground, hairs were visible. Long hair, grown on the work tools, the lower extremities. Sacrilege for a professional cyclist, who is constantly shaved by massages and even aerodynamics. Those hairs seemed to say that the Slovenian from the Jumbo would not take the Tirreno-Adriatico seriously, a race in which he made his debut in 2023.
Nothing is further from reality. The road puts everyone in their place. And Roglic’s is truly top. After five days of competition, Roglic has won the fourth and fifth stages and is the leader of the test of the two seas, with 4 seconds over Kamma (Bora).
Everyone was wrong with the seriousness and level of the winner of three Vueltas a España. At 33, Roglic has yet to say the last word about him. He has returned after half a year without running and after undergoing surgery to fix a fractured shoulder, which was damaged in the Tour on the day of the pavé and in the Vuelta in his fall in Tomares with Fred Wright, and he has done so to return to be the same as always. This year his objective is the Giro.
The Slovenian does not care if it is a three-kilometer climb on a circuit or a special category port with all of the law. If they don’t pick him up, he sweeps the favorites sprint. On Wednesday, on the climb to Tortoreto, he defeated Alaphilippe and Adam Yates, two thirty-somethings. On Thursday he beat Ciccone and Tao Geoghegan Hart, two who are entering maturity, in the last stretch.
The organization of the race cut the ascent to Valico de Santa Maria Magdalena by three kilometres. He climbed up to the Fonte Landina refuge because the wind was reaching gusts of 65 km/h. The conditions were not as bad as in France, where the sixth stage of Paris-Nice was suspended due to falling trees that endangered the safety of cyclists.
In Italy, the air of face cut several strategies in the bud and left the queen stage almost without attacks. For example, it stopped Movistar’s offensive in its tracks. The Spanish team began to harden the rhythm with 20 km to go with Aranburu, Oliveira and Verona. They were preparing the final attack of Enric Mas but the demarraje did not arrive.
It was Caruso, Landa’s teammate at Bahrain, who took the lead. It was the only skirmish until less than a kilometer and a half from the finish line Mas started. The Spaniard has been impregnated with the new combative spirit of Movistar. Nothing to do with the prudish cyclist from last year, when he fell in this same race going down the Carpegna. In Andalusia he fought in a couple of stages with Pogacar. In Tirreno he has met the other Slovenian, Roglic.
The one with the Jumbo, crouched throughout the climb, almost flirting with staying, took advantage of Mas’s attack, who hunted down Caruso with his acceleration and launched the sprint in a group of up to 17 cyclists. Unthinkable if he had run in another way, more aggressive, without so much wind. A piece of cake for Roglic.
