Surrounded and outnumbered, Primož Roglič is in a Giro d'Italia conundrum - Philippa York analysis

When Primož Roglič and his Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe teammates finally sat down and took stock at the conclusion of the first six days of racing on Italian roads at the Giro d'Italia they would have realised that there was good news and there was bad news. 

The positives were that Roglič had already been race leader for two of those days. The negatives were that he had fallen, they had lost Jai Hindley and – the biggest worry of all – the 2023 Giro champion had been outflanked by UAE Team Emirates-XRG, sitting 2 minutes 25 seconds behind Isaac del Toro and half that to Juan Ayuso.

It was always going to be a possibility that UAE would play the numbers game when the opportunity presented itself and the gravel sectors on the way to Sienna seemed the mostly likely terrain for that to happen, so it’s not a great surprise. The concern is that now the options to recover the minutes lost to Del Toro and Ayuso on the crucial mountain stages are more limited, with Hindley’s retirement and Dani Martínez’s iffy form. 

Compared to the UAE Team Emirates resources available, namely Adam Yates and Brandon McNulty, the critical role of climbing domestique is likely going to fall on the shoulders of Giulio Pellizzari who was the only teammate that Roglič had left in the final part of the fateful ninth stage. The interesting part of this situation is it was Pellizzari who was runner up to Del Toro when the latter won the Tour de l’Avenir two years ago, the Italian taking the stage win and the Mexican the overall victory on the last mountain top finish. 

Now at this Giro they find themselves rivals again, one protected in the maglia rosa and the other in service of his team leader. Born only six days apart it's not yet approaching the Wout van Aert vs Mathieu dan der Poel saga but the possibility is there given time, which of course they have plenty of at the age of 21. Van Aert and Van der Poel have 126 days of separation, a chasm by comparison with the youngsters.

Searching for clues

The first opportunity for Roglič to regain some seconds is Tuesday's time trial where theoretically he ought to be 30 seconds faster than the pink jersey wearer but, between calculating seconds per km of previous TTs and the reality of what damage has been done in his crash, it could go either way. 

Same for Ayuso, normally he would lose 15-20 seconds to Roglič however stitches in the leg are going to make the day more uncomfortable. Even so, if the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe leader races to the form book he’ll still be roughly two minutes behind on GC. Not insurmountable but not ideal and with Ayuso mugging him on the uphill sprints that are his trademark, there are no margins left for the lapses of concentration that we saw in the last few metres of stages 7 and 8. 

The Spaniard remains the biggest threat to Roglič but overcoming Del Toro won’t be simple and the second week ought to give a few clues to how the GC tactics play out.

UAE have the upper hand but can’t lie back and risk Roglič wearing them down in the last week, they can’t let him take bonus seconds either. There are three days coming where the breakaway has the chance to survive so they can let Lidl-Trek's Mads Pedersen and co. try to control things and that leaves the two mountain stages to cover if Roglič goes on the attack.

He has to do that, but there's the risk of being countered by not only the UAE duo but Simon Yates (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost), who are looking spritely and each have a Grand Tour on their palmarès as a warning of how strong they can be. Then there’s Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers), who is no stranger to racing aggressively, and all this means the Giro’s middle part will be complicated as each contender tries to figure out when, or if, to make a move.

Commit or play poker?

For the fast men it’s been a fruitful race so far, nine days and five sprint finishes of one sort or another. Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) blasted the other hopefuls on the rain soaked trek to Naples only two days after Casper van Uden (Picnic-PostNL) surprised everyone in Lecce. In between it was the Pedersen show again. The former world champion has remained the reference in terms of sprinting but now that Wout van Aert has a confidence boosting win under his belt I wonder if Visma-Lease a bike will rethink their strategy of all in for Olav Kooij on the flatter stages. 

With Lidl-Trek having Giulio Ciccone involved in the GC they can't afford to control the race every time it's meant to be a sprint and therefore at some point Visma-Lease a Bike, Picnic PostNL, Jayco-AlUla and Alpecin-Deceuninck are going to have to decide amongst themselves if, how and when they commit to policing the guys in the early break.

If the team directors in the cars play poker then we might see another Diego Ulissi type surprise. Though, given XDS Astana's points tally for this year, that they were rewarded with a day in pink at the Giro wasn’t the biggest 'what just happened?' moment. They have had KOM blue jersey wearer Lorenzo Fortunato consistently in the attacks too and, though Luke Plapp (Jayco-AlUla) out-muscled them for a rather impressive win, you get the feeling that the team will continue to be a feature. 

What I don’t expect is for an intra-team conflict at UAE to emerge straight away, it might later on, but given the pasting that Del Toro gave to Van Aert on the climbs heading to Sienna there’s no valid reason to question the strength of the current maglia rosa. 

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