You're right, that headline is a bit flippant. UAE Team Emirates had to wait and see whether their 21-year-old revelation could hold it together in only his second Grand Tour, and see what their supposed team leader had in his locker as he struggles with a knee problem.
But equally as flippant, arguably, is rocking up to a Grand Tour with a field of rivals you defenestrated last season, left the defending champion at home so the competition felt safe bringing their big guns to the shootout, only to be beaten to the pistol draw by the aforementioned 21-year-old riding only his second Grand Tour. Now, who does that remind you of?
Okay, that's getting ahead of ourselves, but if the way Del Toro slipped off his rain jacket while Thymen Arensman, Egan Bernal and Richard Carapaz hurriedly sucked air through their teeth didn't remind you of the Slovenian who ran so he could walk, then it at least signalled to the UAE bosses (yes, along with Ayuso's dodgy knee) that it was time to back Del Toro.
"Our idea, our goal, is for the team to ride compact around our leader, Isaac," sports director Fabio Baldato said over the rest day zoom call, hosted in lieu of an in-person press conference, maybe cynically viewed as controlling the controllables – AKA, being probed with any properly awkward Ayuso-y or leadership-y questions that would slip down the gullet like a cold cup of tea left forgotten too long on the coaster.
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