'Important thing is that UAE wins Giro d'Italia' - Injured Juan Ayuso plays down hierarchy issues after teammate Isaac del Toro grabs lead

For much of the morning of the Giro d'Italia's rest day in Italy, one of the biggest doubts amongst race followers was the extent of the injuries to Juan Ayuso's knee caused by his stage 9 crash on the gravel roads of Tuscany and how many stitches he had needed for it.

Was it two stitches or four stitches Ayuso needed - as one Spanish newspaper reported - or even seven, as another Spanish media outlet said? During the UAE Team Emirates rest day press conference, Ayuso quickly put the whole mystery to bed by revealing he had three stitches in his knee.

Ayuso insisted that he was feeling much better after training than when he had woken up on Monday morning. But at long term, another issue rumbles for UAE Team Emirates - about their Giro d'Italia leadership - that may yet prove much trickier to resolve than the Spaniard's seemingly minor knee injury.

As things stand, UAE Team Emirates have no less than four riders in the top 10, ranging from Isaac del Toro in the lead, Ayuso in second at 1:13, Brandon McNulty in eighth at 1:59 and Adam Yates at 2:01.

Most, if not all, teams would be more than happy to be in such a powerful position going into the first rest day, and Ayuso told reporters that if he had been told before the Giro that he would reach this point in the race in second place and a minute ahead of arch-rival Primoz Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), he would have accepted it in a flash.

But after stating pre-Giro that he was happy to be on the podium in Rome and would not rule out going for the outright victory, and then slightly shifting the goalposts to 'we're here to win' after his victory on Tagliacozzo summit finish, Ayuso's most recent statement on the question on Monday was again, subtly different.

"The important thing is that the team wins the Giro," Ayuso said. "Obviously, I want to win it, but if a teammate wins it, then it's mission accomplished as well. If I have to lose the Giro, then I'd like the disappointment to be because a teammate has won it, not a rival rider."

As for his own situation in terms of physical condition and morale, Ayuso said that his knee was hurting him, but he had completed his training ride feeling better than when he started it, "which makes me feel a lot calmer about tomorrow's time trial".

"Morale-wise, things are great. If you'd told me at the Albania start I'd reach this rest day lying second and with a minute on Roglič, then I'd have signed for it on the spot.

"Both me and the team are in a great position," said Ayuso, currently at 2:25 on Del Toro and ahead of Roglič by 1:12.

"This [GC situation] has not changed the team's strategy," Joxean Fernández Matxin, team manager, added to reporters in the same press conference. "Juan is a leader, Adam [Yates] is a leader, nothing changes even if Isaac is leading the race.

"Rather than asking us about it," - the team's super-strong GC situation - "maybe you should ask the other teams how they plan to attack us now. I'd like to know the answer to that."

Multiple crashes

Regarding his multiple crashes that have sandwiched his first week of the Giro, with the first on stage 1 and the last on stage 9, Ayuso said it was regrettable that he had hurt the same knee in his fall on Sunday, the one he had bruised on the opening day of the race. But on the plus side, his muscles had not been affected, and the blow had been directly on his shin-bone.

"That shouldn't really affect my performance, because it was not the muscle, which I need to generate power in my legs, but purely the bone that was hit. I was worried for 15-20 minutes but now it's better.

"I would have preferred not to have crashed again and the problem was I fell on the knee with the bruise, needed three stitches and it hurt a lot.

"But luckily today is the rest day, so it was the best day to have a crash, so I can try to recover now."

Within that misfortune of crashing, Ayuso was also lucky on both occasions, he said, because the specific circumstances of each fall meant the impact was lessened.

"The first one in Albania was on a very slippery road, which meant I also slipped a lot, so it didn't do too much harm, I've had much worse ones. Then though I hit my knee on the sterrato, fortunately the speed was low, which is why the knee hurts a bit, but the rest of my body is fine."

After the crash happened, he said, "The race exploded, it was full gas and there were lots of small groups going full-on to the finish, so it was quite hectic and stressful.

"I was always praying I never got a puncture because the team car was a long way behind. But I saved the day and Isaac had an amazing day, so overall it went quite well."

The next big challenge for Ayuso and the rest of the Giro overall contenders is fast looming, in the form of Tuesday's 28.6 kilometre time trial, the second of the race.

Like the first one in Tirana, Ayuso is also facing it soon after a crash, but he'll be fighting for a very different result to the one in Albania, where Roglič proved to be notably superior to the rest of the field.

Quite apart from his physical issues, Ayuso will also be crossing his fingers that he doesn't have the same technical setbacks as in Albania, after his special TT bidon fell out when he bounced over a rut in central Tirana.

"It's practically part of the bike and it makes an contribution to the aerodynamics, so if it does fall out again," he joked. "Hopefully it'll be at the end of the TT and not at the beginning."

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