On the eve of the finish in Rome and a final stage promised to the sprinters, the Jumbo-Visma rider stripped of his pink jersey the British Geraint Thomas who cracked in the last kilometer of the terrible final climb.
Despite a chain jump as the finish approached, Roglic, unleashed in front of many Slovenian fans who came as neighbors, won the clock with 40 seconds ahead of Thomas.
This was followed by Portugal's Joao Almeida, Italy's Damiano Caruso and France's Thibaut Pinot.
These five men occupy, in the same order, the first places of the general classification where Roglic now leads Thomas by 14 seconds, one of the smallest gaps in the history of the Giro.
Barring an accident or an improbable twist in a final stage that will be a parade through the streets of Rome, we are moving towards a first victory for the Slovenian in the Giro d'Italia, where he took third place in 2019.
At 33, it would be the fourth victory in a Grand Tour for Roglic, three-time winner of the Vuelta.
It is a brilliant revenge for the former ski jumper, often cursed in the past. He had notably lost the Tour de France 2020 in a similar hill time trial during the penultimate stage, at the Planche des Belles Filles.
While he wore the yellow jersey for eleven days, Roglic had ended in perdition, helmet crooked and face pale, and knocked down by his compatriot Tadej Pogacar.
On Saturday, he evacuated the trauma in an even more difficult, even senseless, climb on a mule track just paved and terribly steep, with a gradient of 7.3 km at 12.1% average.
© 2023 AFP