"It is a real scandal" - Philippe Gilbert critical of motorbike positioning during Primoz Roglic's individual time-trial at the Giro d'Italia
CyclingTuesday, 16 May 2023 at 22:44
Although Primoz Roglic finished the stage 9 individual time-trial at the Giro d'Italia in sixth position, 17 seconds down on the stage winner Remco Evenepoel, fellow Belgian Philippe Gilbert believes the gap could and should have been larger if not for a race motorbike.
"I didn't dare say it during the live broadcast so as not to sound pro-Belgian, but it is a real scandal," Gilbert tweets in response to a post that drew attention to the positioning of the race motorbike and the seeming slipstream bonus it had given to the Jumbo-Visma leader.
With Evenepoel now having sadly been forced to abandon the Giro d'Italia after testing positive for covid, Roglic sits second in the general classification just a single second behind the new Maglia Rosa and runner-up on the stage 9 time-trial, INEOS Grenadiers leader, Geraint Thomas who coincidentally was only beaten to the stage win by Evenepoel also by just a single second.
The two photos due indeed seem to show an advantage for Roglic in comparison to the positioning of the motorbike when Evenepoel was at the same point in the race. Take a look at the pictures below and judge for yourselves.
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It's not possible to draw any useful conclusion from those two photos. The shot of Roglic is taken with a longer focal length which could give the impression that the motorike is closer than the one in the other pic.
30 years as a professional photographer and writer of photo guides, so I know how perspective works.
Gilbert is working hard to keep up with Boonen in the "former star trying to stay relevant by criticizing current stars" category. Both have a particular fondness for questioning TJV, and in this case Gilbert is making noise on the same topic he was silent about after Amstel Gold, when the race director pretty clearly got in front of Pogacar just as Healy was closing.