The 2022 Itzulia Basque Country has just started and we already have our first winner, Primoz Roglic as he won the opening time trial. Roglic defended his title as he won the same time trial back in 2021. That was surely a historic win as Roglic put behind Remco Evenepoel (QuickStep-AlphaVinyl).
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After his amazing win, Roglic said:
I’m super happy that I won. It was super technical, with a lot of corners. I had the legs and yeah, it’s crazy.
It’s just the start. It was 10 minutes of effort. You can’t have super big differences but I always say it’s always better to have some advantage than disadvantage. But it doesn’t mean anything yet.
This is just the beginning though, as Roglic will be leading the stage 2 race on Tuesday. The race will be sprawling between Leitza and Viana and will have a total distance of 207.4-kilometers. As if this stage was not hard enough, the time trial ran through the streets of the coastal town of Hondarribia.
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Shifting our focus to Evenepoel who also did great, he managed to demolish the previous best score laid by Cavagna, and that too by eight seconds which is amazing. Roglic is not overwhelmed by his win and promises a much bigger challenge is ahead of him.
It was only ten minutes effort, no big differences and this is only just beginning.
But as I always say, better to be ahead than behind. It’s a great start.
How the race unfolded was truly marvelous, even the World Championships Silver Medalist Evenepoel could not do anything in front of Roglic’s might. Even after Evenepoel’s defeat, he did not want to spar with Roglic for the overall event:
On Sunday, I said this time trial would be a lottery because it’s very technical and short.
But I can’t blame myself because I went as fast as possible and only one guy was faster than me
It’s a bit sad to be second again in a WorldTour race after Tirreno, so let’s go for tomorrow, it’s a new race.
Roglic has to protect his legacy and add even more wins to it, the event has just begun and there will be many challenges ahead of him.
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Featured Image Via Instagram/primozroglic
