The main protagonists of this Giro d'Italia 2023 were the escapees. They have not been (for different reasons) Remco, Primoz, G and Joao Almeida. It was Derek Gee, Ben Healy, Nico Denz, Thibaut Pinot and company.
It has been a Giro that we have spent waiting for the next day for something to happen and the next day never came. The organization's ideas ended up going wrong:
1. I put 3 chrono's to attract a star like Remco Evenepoel and after 10 days he leaves for Covid.
2. I put a beastly mountain in the last week, which causes 2 first weeks with nothing and a last one with tremendous marking and almost no attacks.
3. I put the hardest time trial in history in the penultimate stage, which causes everyone to be afraid of it, think that everything will be played there (as it ended up happening) and do nothing until then.
As we say, it has been a Giro d'Italia to forget. Special criticism to Jumbo-Visma and
INEOS Grenadiers, the two richest teams of the peloton, which have not proposed absolutely nothing.
Roglic deserved to win in the end because he was stronger on Monte Lussari, where they decided to gamble everything. It's that simple. No more. There was nothing up to that point. Neither Jumbo tried to toughen the race so that at least Roglic could gain seconds with stage bonuses nor INEOS did the same or used Arensman or De Plus as plan B to wear Roglic down and get him more burned at the end.
INEOS Grenadiers brought out its famous 'train', which in this case was more like a little train, as it did not hurt its rivals and its rider lost the race at the end. Always playing the same old game ends up causing defeats...