Giro: Cavendish wins the last stage, Roglic crowned for the first time in Italy

Drunk with happiness at the foot of the Colosseum on Sunday in Rome, Primoz Roglic savored his first victory in the Tour of Italy, which has redeeming value for the Slovenian, three years after his traumatic failure in the Tour de France.

It is, after his three successes in the Vuelta, the fourth victory in a Grand Tour for the Jumbo-Visma rider. He leads by only fourteen seconds in the general classification the Briton Geraint Thomas, very worthy in the defeat and a luxury driver on Sunday to take his compatriot Mark Cavendish to a seventeenth victory in the Giro.

For Roglic, 33, this Roman triumph has a very special flavor, three years after having lived a nightmare in the Tour de France when, yellow jersey for eleven days, he had been knocked down by Tadej Pogacar during a counter-attack. tragic watch on the eve of the finish.

The revenge is all the sweeter as he lived this time the scenario in reverse. He took power in the Giro on Saturday by robbing the Welshman Geraint Thomas of his pink jersey on a last uphill time in the frightening Monte Lussari, in front of thousands of Slovenian fans in a trance.

Including - incredible wink of fate - one of his former teammates of the national junior ski jumping team, Mitja Meznar, who happened to be right on the spot where he suffered a chain jump and who helped get going. “The emotions I experienced yesterday on Mount Lussari will remain engraved for life. I'll never forget. It was super incredible,” insisted Roglic.

Sunday, the last stage, a friendly parade on his beautiful pink bike in the postcard setting of the Eternal City, was a formality. Roglic finished warm in the peloton, sprinted by Cavendish in bright sunshine.

The coronation of Roglic, one of the fantastic six in cycling, is the culmination of an extraordinary first part of the season. The Slovenian has simply won the three races he has contested this year, Tirreno-Adriatico, the Tour of Catalonia and the Giro.

Brilliant strokes that fill an already full trophy cabinet and in which little more is missing than the Tour de France that he could compete in this year, even if his team's projects remain unclear in this regard.

Roglic was the big favorite for this Giro with Remco Evenepoel, before a positive Covid-19 test for the Belgian after ten days deprived the race of the announced duel.

The Giro d'Italia then got into a bit of trouble in terms of the fight for the general classification. Despite, or perhaps because of, a very difficult course, especially in the third week, the main favorites spent their time marking their pants in sometimes apocalyptic weather conditions, in the cold and in the pouring rain.

As abandonments multiplied, Roglic was not spared either. Even before the start, four of his teammates had to be replaced because of a positive test for Covid-19.

“We had to change the selection in disaster, we were already happy to be able to start at eight”, recalled Sunday its sports director Marc Reef, praising the strength of character of its leader, still involved in two falls which notably earned him a deep gash at the hip.

Falls and injuries are an integral part of the Slovenian's career. Cursed for a long time, he took a dazzling revenge on fate on Sunday in Rome.