If Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) putting 16 seconds into Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) during the stage 2 time trial was the prologue of this year's Giro d'Italia story, then the latter surging to victory on the first summit finish on stage 7, and taking back 12 seconds, served as the first act.
The second day in Albania showed us the context of Roglič, a five-time Grand Tour winner looking to triumph at a second Giro, showing all his experience and missing that TT victory by less than a second. It also set the scene of the challenge ahead for the much younger Ayuso, who at 22 is a rising star, but failed to perform as he would have liked in the race of truth, and has a long way to go until he can match the palmarès of the Slovenian and actually beat him across three weeks.
