'Tomorrow, everything changes' - Juan Ayuso and UAE Team Emirates-XRG aiming to do battle on Giro d'Italia's first summit finish

After a week of GC skirmishes, crashes and bunch sprints, favourite Juan Ayuso says he's keen to get into the mountains on stage 7 and see the first major climbing battle between the overall favourites on Friday.

Third in the 2022 Vuelta a España and widely considered Primoz Roglič's major rival for the overall in this year's Giro d'Italia, Ayuso is currently lying sixth overall, 35 seconds down on leader Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) and 18 seconds down on Roglič.

Ayuso won two summit finishes in week-long stage races this year, at the Volta a Catalunya and before that in Tirreno-Adriatico, which he won overall.

Speaking at the start of the crash-marred stage 6, which saw Adam Yates and Jay Vine both amongst the many fallers, although both could finish, Ayuso said he was ready to move into the thick of the action at Tagliacozzo.

"I'm looking forward to it a lot. It's the first chance we have to see where we are, so I hope that I'm there at the front and that I can be battling it out," Ayuso said.

Although Ayuso won on another Apennine summit finish in Tirreno-Adriatico earlier this year, at Frontignano much further north in the same mountain chain, he said that he had never been up the Tagliacozzo, an unprecedented climb for the Giro d'Italia.

"It will be new terrain for me, but I think probably the breakaway will stay away," Ayuso commented. "We've also got Roglič to think about, we saw Egan [Bernal Ineos-Grenadiers] has been on the front a lot, so he seems to be going quite well.

"Obviously, we're now missing [Mikel] Landa (Soudal-QuickStep), and we should see [Antonio] Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious) up there. I think it's the first time Tom Pidcock (Q36.5) might try the GC, but anything he attempts, he can perform well, because he's one of the best riders in the peloton. In any case, there are quite a few guys in play."

Ayuso was categorical that Roglič was the favourite, rather than himself, to win the Giro, but he also added that the crash on stage 1 was thankfully no longer affecting him.

"It did not help, but I've been feeling a bit better every day, so tomorrow should be good," he insisted. "I think I've been OK getting my race rhythm back."

Ayuso's words were echoed by UAE's lead sports director Fabio Baldato, who told Cyclingnews before stage 6 that he regarded the opening mountain stage of the Giro as "where we begin to get a real understanding of how each of the contenders is going."

The first mountain sort out, Baldato said, was always a question of eliminating some riders from the GC struggle, but not where anything like a definitive GC structure would emerge.

"It's always the same with the first big mountain day in the first week. After this stage, you can remove some GC guys from the picture, guys you think could be doing well, but who then lose two to three minutes. If you started with 10 contenders for the overall, then there will be less afterwards. You begin to understand which riders cannot beat the others."

Amongst the top favourites who will stay in contention, Baldato said there would not be so many big gaps: But he warned that even so, it would be possible to lose 30 seconds or more on the steep final kilometres of the last climb if a mini-GC battle eventually kicked off.

However, he was convinced, too, that come Friday evening, Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), the leader - bar one day - since stage 1 -  would not be in the pink leader's jersey.

"We could see what he was able to do in the first two stages in Albania. The first stage had 3000 metres of altitude gain, and his team was super strong as well. They have done an excellent first week.

"But tomorrow [Friday] everything changes and we'll see, for example, if a local rider like [Giuilio] Ciccone (Lidl-Trek)" - who comes from the Abruzzo region where the mountain top finish is located - "tries to keep the pink jersey for the team. But in any case, Lidl are really going well and many congrats to them for what they have done."

As for Ayuso, Baldato recognised that at the end of a tough mountain stage like Friday's incursion into the Apennines, the Spaniard would be, or at least should be, in his element.

"It could be a good day for Juan because he prefers those long days of climbing. So we have faith in him, although we also saw a very strong Roglic in the first week.

"The key goal is not to lose time, and then if there's a chance of a win - well, we're not going to brake."

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