Primoz Roglic will rely on 21-year-old talent to win him the Giro: "Roglic has been outflanked by UAE Team Emirates"

The second time trial of Giro d'Italia shook up the general classification, but ultimately Primoz Roglic is still trailing his rival Juan Ayuso by almost a minute. And the Spaniard has three more teammates within the top-7 with Isaac del Toro still in the overall lead. Can the patched up Roglic turn the tables in the second half of the Giro?

"When Primoz Roglic and his Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe teammates finally sat down and took stock at the conclusion of the first week of racing on Italian roads at the Giro d'Italia they would have realised that there was good news and there was bad news," Philippa York analyzes in her Cyclingnews column.

"The positives were that Roglic had already been race leader for two of those days," Yorks begins by outlining things that went well in the first week. However things started to go sideways as peloton approached the second rest day. "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," she lists.

The major blow for Roglic came on the mini-Strade stage 9 when he lost a minute due to his crash and two minutes to the new Maglia rosa Isaac del Toro. Yet it shouldn't be surprising that UAE or INEOS tried to use all of their cards against weakened Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe in the one stage that dared chaos to break out.

"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."

In the high mountains of third week, Roglic should still have an advantage over Juan Ayuso (and Del Toro), but he'll also need to deal with UAE's inifinite team depth with many top-tier climbers on domestique duties. On the other hand according to York, Roglic can rely only on the 21-year-old Giulio Pellizzari.

"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 Roglic had left in the final part of the fateful ninth stage."

Even though the team of Juan Ayuso holds all the trump cards, they should stay alert and try to put Roglic under pressure at every opportunity. "UAE have the upper hand but can’t lie back and risk Roglic wearing them down in the last week, they can’t let him take bonus seconds either."