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So we are off, stage 1 of the Giro on paper a short 19km individual time trial. Long enough to be meaningful, short enough to underestimate.
The two clear favourites for the overall race, Remco Evenepeol and Primoz Roglic got to go head-to-head and it's fair to say Evenepoel came out on top, putting 43 seconds into his rival. I've read a listened to a number of interviews with Roglic. The line of questioning is heavily biased towards how strong Evenopoel was and how damaging that is to the Roglic campaign to become the Giro champion in three weeks' time.
So what's the lesson here? As is so often the case there's a risk that when presented with difficult situations, we begin to compare ourselves to others at our detriment. And even it we are not doing that, other people are more than happy to do that for us. Investing too much time and energy in comparing is unlikely to do anything to improve the future performacne. So working out a way to resist that tendency is likely to be way more beneficial.
Roglic, well drilled for the invevitatble press questions gave what were no doubt precanned answers, "I'm really pleased with my performance", "it's a three week race and a lot can happen" etc.
Have you got your own version of precanned questions for the situations you might face? If not could it be worth investing in some? When we do, we can often find our thinking is more effective when under pressure and therefore our performance can improve or at the very least not deteriate.
Stage 1 - Result
Remco Evenepoel (BEL) Soudal-Quickstep 21:18
Filippo Ganna (ITA) INEOS Grenadiers +0:22
Joao Pedro Almeida (POR) UAE Team Emirates +0:29
Tao Geoghegan Hart (GBR) INEOS Grenadiers +0:40
Stefan Küng (SUI) Groupama-FDJ +0:43
Primoz Roglic (SLO) Team Jumbo-Visma +0:43
Jay Vine (AUS) UAE Team Emirates +0:46
Brandon McNulty (USA) UAE Team Emirates +0:46
Geraint Thomas (GBR) INEOS Grenadiers +0:55
Aleksandr Vlasov (-) Bora-Hansgrohe +0:55