Bruyneel and Martin on UAE's 'chaos' in the Giro d'Italia: "When Pogacar is not in the race, they are scattered all over the place"

As they do with every major race, the colleagues of the WEDU podcast The Move analyzed what happened in the first stage of the Giro d'Italia. Yesterday, pundits Spencer Martin and Johan Bruyneel spoke, focusing on the big differences they saw between the Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe and UAE Team Emirates - XRG teams at the end of a day that was very nervous and dangerous.

Martin began by explaining that he was surprised by the difference in Red Bull's attention to Primoz Roglic and UAE's to Juan Ayuso, explaining that he believes the UAE team behaves in a much less organized way when Tadej Pogacar is not racing:

"Red Bull was very attentive with Roglic at the end of the race, the ones we didn't see at the front was UAE. When Pogacar is not in the race, they are scattered all over the place. Lucky for Juan Ayuso who navigated well on the climb and the stage finish, because there was going to be no one with him. We don't know what's going to happen further down the road, but what it looks like now is that Red Bull has come in very focused and UAE doesn't have the luster of Pogacar right now because he's not racing and it may be a messier race on his part than we're used to with him."

Bruyneel continued in the same vein, emphasizing how well both BORA and Roglic did and trying to find an explanation for the poor final position of Ayuso and UAE:

"Red Bull was very organized, I thought Primoz has very good legs, he was extremely attentive, more considering it was the first stage, I would say he was too far ahead to be a favorite fighting for the overall. And UAE was disorganized, I didn't see them as a unit. I don't know if it's because Ayuso is not good at positioning. If Pogacar is there they are a well-oiled machine, but without him, they are all over the place. This is obviously a problemW.

Bruyneel believes that when the going gets tough, UAE will work as a team:

"I don't expect that to happen when the race gets to harder ground, there they're automatically going to be at the front, but Red Bull made a great impression as a team, I was delighted to see that."

This reflection makes us think about other stages of the Giro d'Italia that at first may not seem dangerous or decisive for the overall but the difference in organization between teams could make some kind of differences. There are no easy or transition stages in a race as huge as the Giro d'Italia.