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Stage 9, 35km Individual time trial, from Savivnano soul Rubicone to Cessna. Victory on the day went to Remco Evenepoel. However, only just. His margin of victory was just one second. As expected, he also regained the pink jersey. Whilst this all might sound good, I’m sure Evenepoel would have been looking for a greater winning margin, so he has some additional time over his rivals when they hit the higher mountains. In cycling the ITT is known as the race of truth as it pits the rider's physical and mental strength against the clock. Since the late eighties, the drive to improve the aerodynamics of the rider has been an off-the-race battle between the teams. The detail of a rider's position on the bike and the equipment being used being constantly assessed and updated to find the smallest of improvements. Evenepoel winning margin of just 1-second highlights the importance of these detailed assessments. The top three on GC, Evenepoel, Thomas and Roglic,
are now separated by 47 seconds. With what’s to come in the next two weeks, we certainly have a race on our hands.
So what’s the lesson? Details matter. The margins we face between achieving what we want and equally avoiding what we don’t want may not be so fine as in the time trial. However, really assessing what we can do it improve our chances of success is so important and often overlooked. Setting up a meeting, a challenging conversation, or simply wanting to get a bit fitter can all benefit from assessing the details. Some things you do might not be a massive shift however, when you add up all the small things you could do, you might find you are in a much stronger position to get what you want.