Roglič is in form
Based on the first three days, Primož Roglič (Red Bull–BORA–Hansgrohe) is in great form and seems unusually relaxed. The 35-year-old Slovenian took over the race leader’s maglia rosa (pink jersey) after riding a superb ITT on stage 2, 13.7 km through the capital Tirana, which he lost by less than a second to the INEOS Grenadiers’ ITT wunderkind Joshua Tarling.
Roglič and his team were happy to cede the leader’s jersey back to Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), who had won it on stage 1, lost it to Roglič on stage 2, and took it back on stage 3. This early in the race, it means little beyond the obvious: Roglič is in great form and should now be considered a strong favourite over his main rival, Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates–XRG), who sits in fifth, 16 seconds behind Roglič. Pedersen leads the race by 9 seconds over the Slovenian, with his lead-out rider, Mathias Vacek, sitting third, at 14 seconds.
Claiming that the short time trial hadn’t suited him, Roglič said after the stage, “I’m happy, definitely, how to say… I didn’t really plan it, I was just dreaming to have it and to be able to fight for it in Rome. So I’m just happy with today’s result and with the jersey.”
As for the gaps to his other GC rivals, he said with a smile, “For sure, I always want to win, but I don’t care so much about the results. I’m too old to be stressed about the time differences.”
Interesting fact: By wearing the maglia rosa on stage 2, Roglič has now led a Grand Tour for 61 stages, surpassing the 60 of compatriot and rival Tadej Pogačar and the retired Spanish great Alberto Contador. The all-time record is held by – who else? – Eddy Merckx, with no fewer than 202 stages ridden in a Grand Tour leader’s jersey. Wow!
Pedersen still in fine form
Pedersen took his great form from the spring Classics, in which he was the third-best rider, after Pogačar and Mathieu van der Poel, and dominated the Giro’s “Albanian weekend,” winning two of the three stages. In both victories, he dominated the bunch sprints, so that the 29-year-old Dane has taken a big lead in the race for the maglia ciclamino, or purple jersey, for the points competition. He currently has 54 points, well ahead of the 35 by Alessandro Tonelli (Polti VisitMalta) and the 24 of Orluis Aular (Movistar).
Tonelli and Aular are not sprinters; they snatched their points in intermediate sprints while riding in long breakaways. The sprinters who were thought to be Pedersen’s main rivals, Olaf Kooij (Visma–Lease a Bike) and Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck), have been notable for their inability to make it over the few climbs the riders have so far confronted. And as for Kooij’s teammate Wout van Aert, who has a Tour de France Škoda Green Jersey to his name…
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Van Aert’s bad luck continues
In the stage 2 time trial, van Aert finished an uncharacteristically 11th, 32 seconds behind the winner. This was probably due to the illness he suffered before the Giro kicked off, and which forced him to return home for a doctor’s visit.
“I’m heading into this Giro with question marks,” he said a few days before the start. “Unfortunately, I got sick last week, and that meant my preparation was far from ideal. After Amstel, I wasn’t able to do any real training. I kept having to adjust things. I had an infection that kept lingering, so to be honest, I’m going into this not really knowing where the legs are at.”
Still, he sprinted very well at the end of stage 1, losing to Pedersen by about a meter, though he could be seen dropping back on one of the climbs. But losing 32 seconds in such a short ITT was very un-Wout-like, and so was the way he was dropped by the peloton less than halfway up the category 2 climb on Sunday’s stage 3, to the Qafa e Llogarasë, or Llogorase Pass (10.5 km @ 7.5%). He was clearly still suffering from the effects of the illness and eventually finished 142nd, 15:39 behind the winner
Teammate Bart Lemmen told TNT Sports, “We had hoped Wout would be good, that he’d make it over the climb and be able to sprint, but that wasn’t the case. On the rollers before the final climb, he already let us know he didn’t have the legs he needed, and it became clear soon enough. From then on, our priority was getting safely to the finish and not losing time with Simon [Yates], and we managed that. That’s great, but, of course, we were hoping for more.” Yates is Visma’s GC hope and sits in 12th, 42 seconds behind Pedersen.
Race over, season over for Mikel Landa
The opening stage was a disaster for Soudal Quick-Step’s Mikel Landa – and so also, indirectly, for his team’s leader, Remco Evenepoel. His team announced that Landa broke a vertebra in his back in a crash on a harmless-looking descent with 5 km to go in the stage. That’s a very serious injury, so the 35-year-old Spaniard may not race anymore this year.
He will certainly not line up for the Tour de France, in which he was to be one of Evenepoel’s main support riders in the mountains. Fortunately, Soudal signed the excellent young French climber Valentin Paret-Peintre this year, who will now be the team’s number one mountain domestique at the Tour. However, the question is whether, at age 35, Landa can recover good form and continue his career after such an injury. We hope so and wish him a speedy recovery.
Cycling’s GOAT
And, finally, it took a Grand Tour stage in Albania to answer the question of who is road racing’s GOAT (greatest of all time). He (or she) appeared during Sunday’s stage 3 of the Giro, running across the road and almost causing a crash. Watch it here.
2025 Giro d’Italia GC Standings After Stage 3
1. Mads Pedersen, Lidl-Trek 7:42:10
2. Primož Roglič, Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe + 0:09
3. Mathias Vacek, Lidl-Trek + 0:14
4. Brandon McNulty, UAE Team Emirates–XRG + 0:21
5. Juan Ayuso (ESP) UAE Team Emirates–XRG + 0:25
6. Isaac Del Toro (MEX) UAE Team Emirates–XRG + 0:26
7. Max Poole, Picnic-PostNL + 0:33
8. Antonio Tiberi, Bahrain Victorious + 0:34
9. Michael Storer, Tudor + 0:36
10. Giulio Pellizzari, Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe + 0:40
