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UAE Team Emirates-XRG are entering unknown territory this week as they attempt something that they have yet to achieve: win a Grand Tour without Tadej Pogačar. Since 2017, when Lampre-Merida became UAE Team Emirates, the squad has slowly built itself into the dominant force in Grand Tour racing. However, outside Pogačar’s successes, the team have limited experience of actually leading Grand Tours — Jan Polanc (Giro 2019), Alexander Kristoff (Tour 2020), Brandon McNulty (Vuelta 2024) have all worn the leader’s jersey for a day, while Adam Yates enjoyed four days in the maillot jaune in 2023.
With Isaac del Toro and Juan Ayuso sitting in first and second place on GC and Brandon McNulty and Adam Yates both in the top 10, the team is in a position where they are the frontrunners to win this Giro d’Italia. In fact, outside the 2021 Tour de France and the 2024 Giro, where Pogačar had already built a lead of over two minutes on the rider in second place, the team has not been in such a strong position after nine days of racing. On the Giro’s second rest day, Joxean Fernández Matxin admitted that the current leaderboard is the “perfect situation for us”.
But even still, there are justifiable doubts — both Ayuso and Del Toro are unknown entities when it comes to consecutive days in the high mountains of the Giro. Apart from Ayuso’s podium at the 2022 Vuelta a España, when it comes to success at three-week races, the pair are still inexperienced compared to the riders who will be snapping at their back wheels. And then comes the problem of who to back for victory if the situation begins to unravel. Probed on his ambitions for the remaining 12 stages, Isaac del Toro echoed his sports director’s stance: “To keep the jersey, the pink jersey in the team”. Matxin himself said that the “main goal is to win the Giro” and didn’t rule out Adam Yates or Brandon McNulty being protected depending on how events unfold on the way to Rome.
Read more: Ayuso or Del Toro: Who do UAE back for pink at the Giro?
What can UAE expect from the next two weeks of racing? A whole lot more attacking from the likes of Primož Roglič. The 2023 winner finds himself in almost the polar opposite situation to the UAE riders, where nothing seems to be going quite right for him or his Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe team. The biggest blow to their hopes came in the loss of Jai Hindley, who had to abandon on stage six after a crash. Then came the team’s confusing tactics on stage eight when they paced all day, only for Primož Roglič to be out of position and lose time to both Ayuso and Del Toro on the first summit finish at Tagliacozzo. Most costly of all was the strade bianche stage nine, where the misfortune of a crash and an ill-timed puncture cost Roglič not only over a minute on the majority of his rivals and even more on Del Toro, but also weakened Giulio Pellizzari’s GC ambitions, after he selflessly pulled to try and salvage his leader’s position and lost almost three minutes to the new race leader. Pellizzari is not completely out of the GC picture, but from starting the Giro with four overall options, including Hindley and Dani Martínez, Red Bull now do not have as many tactical options to play with against the likes of UAE.
Red Bull also seem to be lacking in this Giro on the sections when the road is not going uphill, as they were in the Spring Classics. Despite positioning Roglič well into the first gravel sector on Sunday, his two principal rouleurs, Jan Tratnik and Gianni Moscon (riders brought in to shore up support around the Slovenian who is often caught out of position) were absent when other teams like UAE, Ineos Grenadiers and Lidl-Trek still had numbers to help their GC riders.
But despite all this, Roglič is only 2:25 behind Del Toro and 1:12 behind Ayuso. He will likely gain some time back on the stage 10 time trial, but he will need to go on the attack in the Alps to regain the overall lead.
Read more: More than a race: behind the Giro’s stage 10 time trial from Lucca to Pisa
Luckily for fans, aggressive racing may be the name of the game, and not just from Roglič. Ineos, Lidl-Trek, EF Education-EasyPost will all need to look to disrupt the GC playbook and break UAE’s stranglehold on the race. Egan Bernal’s exploits on stage nine may not have resulted in the GC gains that he may have hoped for after he blew up in the final couple of gravel sectors into Siena, but he still finds himself in seventh on GC and within two minutes of the maglia rosa. Likewise, Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) is looking in great shape and is riding the wave of success from the team so far at this Giro and will be supported by deluxe domestiques Mads Pedersen and Mathias Vacek. Richard Carapaz is always fond of attacking racing — he won the race in 2019 on the back of aggressive riding.
Another contender who lost time on the gravel stage is Michael Storer (Tudor Pro Cycling Team), who will be thankful the high mountains are approaching. The Australian has a recent history of throwing caution to the wind in pursuit of GC success at April’s Tour of the Alps, where he came away with the overall win.
As the race approaches the Alps, the organisers will be pleased that the GC battle is still up for grabs. UAE will have their work cut out monitoring, following and chasing moves from all the challengers. After nine days of racing they are in pole position in possession of the maglia rosa, now comes the hard part: holding onto it.
