Are Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe’s "smart minds" behind Roglic’s pink jersey? "They have a lot of expertise"

Roglic finished just one second behind Welshman Joshua Tarling (INEOS Grenadiers), but ahead of all other GC contenders, and by a solid margin. Of the riders expected to finish in the top ten (apart from Jay Vine, who crashed in stage 1), only Juan Ayuso, Roglic’s main rival, made the top ten in the Tirana time trial.

Still, even Ayuso lost 17 seconds to Roglic. The Slovenian only just took the pink jersey from Mads Pedersen, the winner of the opening stage in Albania. Roglic now holds a slim lead of one second over the Lidl-Trek rider, who immediately after the stage made it clear: he wants that jersey back on Sunday.

"I'm happy with it. This isn’t something you plan. We dreamed of having the jersey in Rome, or at least fighting for it until then. I’m just happy with the result, and the jersey comes with that."

"Not really. I mostly wanted to lose as little time as possible. I didn’t think this was the kind of time trial that suited me best, but in the end, I actually enjoyed it. It was tough out there, but time trials always are."

"68. The heavy gearing isn’t the problem, it’s the force I need to apply that makes it hard. But I managed… though I don’t know how!"

"Of course you always want to win, but… pff… it doesn’t really matter that much to me whether I win or not. I’m too old for that now. I’m healthy and I’m performing, so this pink jersey is a nice surprise for me. I’m satisfied."

"Yes, of course. We’ve put a lot of work into it. Dan and especially John Wakefield have a lot of expertise. But we also need time to bring all those smart minds together and optimize things. We’re working on it, and we’ll see how far we can go. So far, it’s going well."

"It was a big party, haha. But even now I'm going to enjoy it, because you never know when it's going to be the last day in pink."

"We’ll see, but it’s always better to give away as few minutes as possible."

"We will see. I think it’ll be pretty similar to the first stage. There’s a tough climb, but Mads Pedersen is in great shape, and they’re definitely going to try to bring it to a sprint for him."

"I can’t complain, I’m feeling good."

"Day by day. We mainly want to have the pink jersey on the final day."