In hindsight, maybe a Red Bull Rampage wasn't quite the tactic to try at the Giro d'Italia's first summit finish, a day after losing one of your best climbers.
But that's exactly what Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe did the day after losing former Giro winner Jai Hindley in the mass pileup on Stage 6 (Hindley suffered a concussion and a fracture to his L3 vertebrae). The team rode aggressively on the front for much of stage 7, which included two Category 2 ascents before the final climb to Tagliacozzo.
The result: when the reduced lead group hit the final ascent, 2023 Giro winner Primož Roglič looked like that old photo of a fox surrounded by a herd of hounds – the hounds in this case being five riders from UAE Team Emirates-XRG, which everyone in the race knows is the primary obstacle between Roglič and a second pink jersey in Rome.
Even after a single stage, it's clear that taking full control of mountain stages is not the path forward for Roglič or Red Bull.
UAE leader Juan Ayuso was comfortably tucked in with the extremely experienced Adam Yates and Rafał Majka for company, plus the firepower of Brandon McNulty and Isaac del Toro. Meanwhile, Roglič was fairly quickly down to [checks notes] 21-year-old Giulio Pellizzari. The young Italian is experienced beyond his age; he nearly won a stage and was second in last year's KOM competition at the Giro, but it remains to be seen if he's capable of Florian Lipowitz-caliber support in the third week of a Grand Tour.
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