Key Takeaways: Giro dell'Emilia & Tre Valli Varesine
Breaking down how the Italian semi-classics were won and what they tell us about the upcoming clash of the titans at Il Lombardia on Saturday
With Il Lombardia, the final Monument and road race of any real importance in 2023, coming this Saturday, I wanted to take a look at a handful of mini-Lombardias that have taken place in Northern Italy over the past week to see what they can tell us about the upcoming main event.
Giro dell'Emilia (Saturday, September 30th)
Primož Roglič, amid a frenzy of rumors about the future of both himself (all signs now point towards him having already signed with Bora-Hansgrohe for next season), and his Jumbo-Visma team, won the Italian Classic Giro dell'Emilia atop the climb to the Madonna di San Luca in Bologna on Saturday with a vintage cool-headed performance that saw him ignore the early attacking, and simply shadow Pogačar’s wheel before flying clear with a devastating acceleration inside the final few hundred meters.
Final Top Three
1) Primož Roglič (Jumbo) +0
2) Tadej Pogačar (UAE) +1
3) Simon Yates (Jayco) +1
Race Notebook
1.8km: As the lead group heads up the steep, 2km-long final climb to the finish line, UAE’s Adam Yates is setting an extremely hard pace in an effort to keep the race together for his teammate Tadej Pogačar. We can see that Yates’ pace is high enough to easily neutralize an attack from Aleksandr Vlasov.
1.6km: In fact, Yates’ high pace is so difficult that it appears to be putting Primož Roglič under significant pressure.
1.1km: As soon as Yates runs out of gas, Pogačar attacks.
1km: However, due to being marked closely by Richard Carapaz and Mike Woods, we can see almost immediately that Pogačar isn’t at his best level. Meanwhile, Roglič stays in the wheel of Carapaz and feels happy to follow.
600m: Realizing he can’t ride clear of Roglič and Carapaz, Pogačar sits up, which allows Enric Mas, who was dropped during the attack, to get back on terms. While Carapaz attempts to attack, Roglič simply sits on Pogačar’s wheel, banking everything on the fact that he is the only true rival on this type of finish.
400m: Pogačar is driving the pace on the front while Roglič is tucked so neatly into the group behind that he can barely be seen against the inside barrier.
300m: Roglič leverages his ‘hidden’ position by swinging out to the wide-open side of the road and opening up his sprint while still undetected. Pogačar responds after glancing back and seeing Roglič, but by this point, Roglič is already in full sprint.
200m: Once in open space, it is immediately clear that Roglič’s pace is unmatchable and that Pogačar is surrendering space to Roglič with every pedal stroke.
Finish: Roglič coolly crosses the finish line for his second win at this race in three seasons, while Pogačar and Simon Yates cross the line a few seconds behind for second and third.
Key Takeaways
1) Primož Roglič won due to his trademark style of sitting still while others attack
Chaos may surround Roglič’s and his Jumbo team’s future at the moment, but the 33-year-old veteran looked as cool and calm as ever as he Roglified the sport’s best punchy-finish riders en route to his second victory in three seasons.
His laser-like focus on Pogačar, his ability to ignore attacks from any other riders, and his confidence to sit and wait until the final few meters were key to this victory.
And his ability to burst clear for the win, significantly distancing Pogačar in the process, shows that he is physically at, or near, some of the best form of his career.
However, while his ability to block out the others and focus only on Pogačar contributed to his win here, it can potentially cost him later in the Italian Classics, practically on Saturday at Il Lombardia.
2) Tadej Pogačar looks unusually unfit, with only a few days remaining before his final major goal of 2024
The Slovenian superstar always tends to build slowly into Il Lombardia before appearing completely unstoppable on race day.
Past Lombardia Lead-Ins
2021: Giro dell'Emilia-DNF, Tre Valli Varesine-3rd, Il Lombardia-1st
2022: Giro dell'Emilia-2nd, Tre Valli Varesine-1st, Il Lombardia-1st
2023: Giro dell'Emilia-2nd, Tre Valli Varesine-5th, Il Lombardia-?Still, his inability to drop key contenders like Richard Carapaz and Roglič with his late-race attacks is a potential warning sign that something isn’t right as we approach the final major race of the 2023 season.
Tre Valli Varesine (Tuesday, October 3rd)
On Tuesday in north-western Lombardy, the young Ilan Van Wilder took advantage of Primož Roglič and Tadej Pogačar soaking up all the attention in the lead group by blowing open what started as just a slight gap inside the final 10 kilometers and riding clear for the race win. Once it was clear Van Wilder would take the win, the motivation drained from the chase group, and Richard Carapaz was able to jump clear for second place.
Final Top Three
1) Ilan Van Wilder (Soudal-QuickStep) +0
2) Richard Carapaz (EF) +16
3) Aleksandr Vlasov (Bora) +18
11.8km: In an eerily similar situation, Pogačar attacks off the pace of Aleksandr Vlasov at the base of the final climb, and is closely marked by Primož Roglič and Richard Carapaz.
11.5km: Similar to dell'Emilia over the weekend, he drops the majority of the field, but isn’t able to shake the other key contenders. Just like Saturday, Roglič is glued to his wheel.
10.3km: In an attempt to take advantage of Roglič just keying off Pogačar, Carapaz attacks. With Roglič/Pogačar focused on each other, this is a good idea in theory, but, somewhat oddly, the move is closed down by Enric Mas, who would be looking to attack to get clear solo, not pegging things back for quicker riders.
9.5km: After Carapaz is reeled in, Ilan Van Wilder goes to the front and increases the pace. Despite the lack of an attack, he gets immediate separation from the rest due to Pogačar and Roglič being too busy literally looking at each other.
9.2km: Van Wilder takes advantage of being spotted this gap and accelerates on the hardest section of the climb to pry open his lead. He knows that if he gets up and over the climb with a lead of even just a few seconds, the ‘second group syndrome’ behind will allow him to ride clear for the win.
Final kilometer: With everyone staring at Pogačar and Roglič, while they stare at each other, there is an acute lack of cooperation in the chase group behind, which allows Van Wilder to open up a nearly 20-second lead heading into the final few hundred meters. Richard Carapaz takes advantage of the stalemate behind by attacking clear to take second place.
Key Takeaways Cont.
3) The attention Pogačar and Roglič draw from the rest of the race has created immense opportunities for late attackers
As we saw with Van Wilder and Carapaz forging clear of the Roglič/Pogačar group late on Tuesday at Tre Valli Varesine, the stalemate between these two favorites creates an opportunity for others to get up the road via an attack.
It should be noted that while it is still possible for the strongest riders, the longer distance and more difficult parcours at Lombardia on Saturday will make it more difficult for the vast majority of wildcard riders to attack and stay clear of the top favorites late in the race.
4) The list of wildcard candidates for Il Lombardia should be extremely small since, outside of raw strength, these late attackers will need an immense amount of confidence
Ilan Van Wilder leveraged the gridlock in the group behind to get the biggest win so far of his career (and only second of his career), but outside of raw strength, he needed to be extremely confident in his ability to hold off the chasers to attack in the first place.
The win shows that the 23-year-old, who spent the first three years of his career working for others (mainly as Remco Evenepoel’s main domestique), has a legitimate chance to forge a career as a race-winner himself if he can keep himself out of the role of Evenepoel’s domestique.
If he appears at Lombardia on Saturday, he will likely be busy working for Evenepoel, but keep an eye out for Van Wilder at these races in the seasons to come.
After a long road back following his crash on stage 1 at the Tour de France back in July, Richard Carapaz has looked surprisingly good through four Italian Classics and could be an ideal candidate to benefit from a late attack that is given slightly too much room.
In theory, Enric Mas would be another strong candidate to also benefit from this, but the past few weeks have made it perfectly clear that Mas simply isn’t comfortable putting it all on the line with a solo attack and will ride harder to peg back moves versus getting off the front by himself.
For example, while he went all out to close down Carapaz on Tuesday at Tre Valli Varesine, Ilan van Wilder sat back and bided his time until he could take advantage of a lull in the pace at just the right moment.
Without a reliable sprint finish, he shouldn’t be considered a serious contender to win these types of one-day races until he can drastically adapt his style of racing.
It speaks volumes that we think Pogacar is "off form" and "something's not right" and the guy is out front battling in these races...lol
I wonder how Remco will change the Pog v Rog dynamic when the Belgian is added to the peloton for Lombardia. Can't see him waiting for the Roglification. Hopefully he goes in the 50k range and explodes the race.