As Giro d'Italia contender Remco Evenepoel glided to a halt a few hundred metres after the finish of Naples, within seconds a small knot of reporters and TV had gathered around the World Champion and a protective circle of Soudal-QuickStep staff, eager to gather the first words of the Belgian after the first key test of any lasting effect of his stage 5 injuries.
The omens had been almost scarily good throughout the 162-kilometre stage through the hills surrounding Naples then back down to the seaport. Evenepoel had briefly messed around with a football, in a double nod to his sporting past and the Naples football club's historic recent league success, at the signing-on podium. Then during the entire, incident-free, stage, he never seemed to be in trouble.
