Number 193 is from Štajerska. His name is Marko Pavlič, perhaps related to Jure Pavlič, one of the giants of Slovenian cycling, winner of the blue Inter-Giro jersey in 1989. Perhaps not. Pavlič started with the rest of them in Žalec, a town famous for its beer fountain, which is exactly what it sounds like. (The fountain is amusing but the beer is not for connoisseurs.) The entrance to Žalec is flanked by endless rows of climbing hops, a kind of natural advertisement for the main attraction. We will go from beer country to wine country today.
The hills of Celje, the steep peaks parted by the Savinja river, will soon even out, will empty into the vast Ptujsko and Središko lowlands which stretch out in greens and blues and golds towards the horizon. It is here where the peloton will catch Pavlič, who, with his lone companion, are no match for the hounding efforts of the men behind. Pavlič’s companion is a tujec, Moran Vermeulen, from Team Vorarlberg. The Austrian won’t pull. In a kind of mimicry of history, the men from the two nations either do not cooperate or cooperate begrudgingly.
Kmeti, farmers, line the road with their tractors. Then those roads traverse plains and become sleepy again. The two men out front, practically neighbors— and at one time originating from the same, long empire — have one minute of grace between themselves and those behind. There are forty kilometers to go.
The finishing town of Ormož is down the Drava river from Ptuj, the most stolid, ancient place in all of Slovenia. It passes its medieval aura down to everything nearby.1 In the equally stolid yet diminutive center of Ormož, the cafe where I’m writing this is just around the bend from the finish line. Luka Mezgec earlier anticipated that yesterday’s playbook would repeat itself: Attacks 12 kilometers out, likely by Bora-Hansgrohe. “They have nothing to lose. No sprinter, no big GC guys. They have to surprise before the big GC days,” he said. But fortunately for the expert leadout man and his sprinter-cargo, Dylan Groenewegen, the finish will be simpler than yesterday — only one corner, the one I’m on the exit of.
Meanwhile, with 33 kilometers left in the race, the man from Štajerska relents, leaving only the Austrian. Fitting, for this land, after all, used to be his.
This part of Slovenia is defined by the contentious defense of borders between empires. The land between Ptuj and the Mura river for hundreds of years separated the German empire from the Kingdom of Hungary. According to local historian Jože Curk, this governmental condition persisted (in various iterations) until after the conclusion of the First World War. After a church-led defeat of the Hungarians in 1199, the Archbishop of Salzburg, through its lackeys, the Seigniors of Ptuj, lorded over Ormož from the high hill of the old city and divided its lands into various feudal estates. These were managed by the likes of winemakers and farmers and their manors still pepper the lowlands, albeit careworn.
But even more than the Archbishop of Salzburg, and even more than their Ministrant in Ptuj, it was the church that had the greatest power here. Curk notes that nearby Velika Nedelja (literally Big Sunday) was an influential hub of the German Knights Order, who provided the force needed to move the border with Hungary back toward the Mura and away from the Drava. The church maintained ideological hegemony in these parts for a very long time: only the Nazis, through a particularly brutal occupation, would usurp the clergy.
Ormož today, perhaps as it has always been, is small and sleepy. The whole town—1,962 inhabitants in total—seems to have come to see the race pass through and as a reward, it will pass them twice. The central street through Kerečičev Square is lined with children and interested passersby. Conversations here transpire in thick Štajerščina dialect. As Vermeulen passes in a flash, this localism fades into the universal language of cheering, which only strengthens when the peloton descends upon Ormož in frenzy of clicking and whirring. It, too, disappears around the corner by the old church (a typically Slovene Baroque construction complete with bell-like dome.) As soon as I order another coffee outside of what was once the noble manor of the wealthy Tanzhofer family (now a shoe store) the announcer says it’s vsi skupaj. The peloton has caught Vermeulen and has again become one organism.
On the screen, the men wind through the Jeruzalem vineyards. Young members of the Perutnina Ptuj cycling team, once the domain of the likes of Borut Božič and Simon Špilak, look on, their eyes sharp with aspiration. The chicken processing factory that sponsors them remains a main source of employment in Ptuj.
Just as Mezgec predicted, in the vineyards, things split. Giovanni Aleotti from Bora-Hansgrohe steals the KOM point at the top of the Jeruzalem climb, but this is not his main objective. His main objective is to win. Others clamor to join. Others still try to pull them back. Young Ide Schelling, following in the slipstream of his intrepid teammate, burns into the descent and those rich, contested lands part for them.
I have a theory that the sky is different over every river in Slovenia. It is different over the Drava than it is over the Sava than it is over the Krka, the Mura, the Savinja, the Ljubljanica. The sky over the Drava is as heavy as the Teutonic architecture of Ptuj, whose castle watches its former subjects from atop its great hill. It is as heavy as the bloody, cursed history of all border frontiers, as heavy as the breathing of the men assembling into sprint trains trying to keep this race together. And they will keep it together. Groenewegen, despite all effort is there.
A placard reads that this town is 750 years old, and I believe it. The whole area reeks of medieval strategy, in its landscape and its architecture. For the men racing, not much has changed in terms of the tactics of combat, not much at all. Take the wheel in front of you. Prevent the opportunists from piercing the citadel of the sprint train. When hit, hit back.
Any second now, they will arrive here in a great phalanx, adding another to the many layers of here. History is strange that way. It’s mindboggling to think that here is the same here where the Seigniors of Ptuj shrewdly did the bidding of a great empire, where two kingdoms brusquely caressed one another for centuries, where the Nazis held captive the square and where the Partisans liberated it from them; here where the border with Yugoslavia-cum-Croatia became hot for those fateful ten days in the 90s; here where there will be a contained, hermetically sealed play-battle in the form of a sprint.
They are barreling through the wide new roads flanked by green trees. They are here. They fan across the road. No one can stop Groenewegen from taking what’s his. Not Moschetti, not Bauhaus. The win, the bike throw, is decisive, solid, and violent.
Yet like all wars reduced to footnotes in the thin pages of history books, what happens for us in one second unfolds powerfully slowly for the men who orchestrate and live it. Crowded by children from Perutnina Ptuj begging for bidons and journalists begging for quotes, the great logician Luka Mezgec breaks down what transpired into no fewer than six discrete events:
We were maybe a little bit too much be behind before the last corner. I was hoping to open in the middle. But the corner was getting closer and we were just getting stuck, stuck in the middle.
Then I tried to go on the right. We were maybe a little bit too far back. But after the corner I knew there was still time, so I didn't panic.
And just at that right moment Lucas Postlberger came around and he just executed, like I’d planned with him when we first saw the finish.
He brought me to the top of the last crest with 500 to go.
And then I saw Q36.5 in the front.
I took their slipstream, waited a little bit and opened up.
Judging by the broad, victorious grin on Groenewegen’s face, theirs was a strategy fit for kings.
Ptuj holds endless (and sometimes macabre) fascination for me and returns time and time again in my private writing.
Context is everything. Historical context more so. Bien hecho.
I was there with you Kate, well done. Love your writing Peter