"For sure it will be a spectacular finish" - Primoz Roglic anticipates brutal Giro d'Italia route

The Giro d'Italia will be spectacular, and most likely dramatic. The route is incredibly hard and the Slovenian knows it, and is certain that the final week of the race will deliver a lot of action high in the mountains.

Having trained at altitude at Mount Teide, Roglic frequently saw his own biggest rival Remco Evenepoel throughout the weeks. "We'd see each other in the mornings and then some dinners. But on the road, when we were training, we were 'hiding' from each other, we were each training by ourselves," Roglic said in an interview with Cyclingnews. "We'll see enough of each other over the next three weeks."

The two have indeed faced this season already, at the Volta a Catalunya, where they finished a tight first and second with the Jumbo-Visma rider taking the win. It was a very important step for both as it was their final race of a big block of preparation. There Roglic won two stages and finished second on another three. The duo were head and shoulders above the competition, mainly when the World Champion attacked the race in it's final days.

Afterwards both took some time off and travelled to Tenerife with their respective teams. "I'm ready. We did everything we wanted here in the camp and we just need to get through the last days before the start and then we are good to go," Roglic reports. "I don't feel, anyway, that this was low intensity, Catalunya was more than intense enough. So we'll just work on having a nice build-up and then I can start the Giro."

He chose not to race between Catalunya and the Giro. This shouldn't come as a big surprise. Although an unusual preparation, the Slovenian has shown on multiple occasions to reach great form without racing - Tirreno-Adriatico being a great example, where he won the GC and three stages after half a year outside of the peloton.

Asked if he had doubts that his preparation was ideal, he responds: "If you start thinking like that, then you'd never start any at all. Risks are always there. But just looking at what I want still to hunt and focus on, we decided on this program, also that this should be my comeback after a while away. So I stand behind the things that we did and now I can patiently wait for the start."

With the decisive days also starting on stage 13, there is enough time to build-up during the race, and it will be key to arrive as fresh as possible to the final week simultaneously. The final decisive day will be the time-trial up Monte Lussari, where in there is a 4.7 kilometer ascent at 15%, the stuff of nightmare for any cyclist, however a day he's looking forward to as it is very close to the border of Slovenia and it's capital Ljubljana.

"I know the roads from the last time trial the best, though, of course, I've been there, I was skiing there a lot of times because it's super close to Slovenia," he reveals. "But we always went up by gondola, and now we're going down by gondola. This time we'll go up with by bike. The Giro is the closest race to our country too, so from what I know from previous experience, there'll be lots of Slovenian supporters there that day. So it'll be nice to come to that part of the race and do that last TT there."

However despite the brutal second half the race does feature important days. Among them two time-trials that mount to 54 - mostly flat - kilometers against the clock and difficult stages to Lago Laceno, Gran Sasso d'Italia and Fossombrone where gaps may appear. As always, the tension in the first week will also be high in the flat finishes as the GC riders look to stay in front to avoid mishaps.

"There are all sorts of options in this race, but the fact is that stage 1 is a GC day, there will be minutes or seconds or whatever between the guys. Then after that, it's a new day all the way and every day. We won't know who's ahead and who's behind until the end of the race, and for sure it will be a spectacular finish. The hard stages, 18, 19, 20 – every day they're going to be changing the game."