Tadej Pogačar may have decided to skip this year's Giro d'Italia, but with a month and a half to go until the season's first Grand Tour, the bookmakers still like UAE Team Emirates-XRG to take the pink jersey in Italy. That's thanks to 22-year-old Juan Ayuso, who cruised to the overall win at Tirreno-Adriatico on Sunday.
"I can probably say that this is my biggest victory alongside La Itzulia, though here I also got to win a stage so I would say it’s been my best performance until now," Ayuso said after Sunday's seventh and final day of racing. "Today’s last stage was quite stressful and tense with the wind. With the team I felt really protected and they kept me safe and out of trouble all day."
The Tirreno win follows a pair of back-to-back one-day victories at the Faun Drǒme Classic and the Trofeo Laigueglia, meaning that Ayuso has now won the last three races he has started. What's more, his performance in Italy this week was illustrative of his potential to meet the variety of challenges that a Grand Tour contender must also meet: He was the second-fastest finisher in the time trial, he stayed out of trouble even in horrid conditions, and he took control of the race with a high-mountain victory on the queen stage.
None of this was hugely surprising, of course, for a rider who already showed at last year's Itzulia Basque Country that he was plenty capable of winning events like this at the WorldTour level. But his Tirreno performance does represent a stage racing bounceback after the second half of Ayuso's 2024 campaign did not go entirely according to plan. He faced criticism for not being enough of a team player for Pogačar at the Tour de France and then proceeded to get COVID-19, forcing him to abandon the race. A stage win at the Tour of Luxembourg was the only big highlight of the season from that point on.
Starting 2025 with the Giro d'Italia on his mind, Ayuso has done everything right so far to prove that he is a worthy leader even amid a very, very crowded field at UAE Team Emirates. In addition to unquestioned top dog Pogačar, UAE also counts the likes of João Almeida and Adam Yates on its roster. While both riders can come away from their rides at Tirreno-Adriatico and Paris-Nice, respectively, with things to be proud of, they might also be wondering if Ayuso's recent performances make him a clearer second fiddle to first chair virtuoso Pogačar.
To be fair to Almeida and Yates, they took the initiative this season with early showings of form; Almeida was runner-up at both the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana and the Volta ao Algarve, and Yates won the Tour of Oman. In the "what have you done for me lately?" department, however, Ayuso has just stamped his authority on one of the biggest one-week races of the year.
For his part, Almeida was tasked with leading UAE at Paris-Nice, and he seemed set to make a bid for the overall, especially after surviving grueling conditions to win stage 4. He even went so far as to tell L'Equipe that cycling was "not for soft people" after his emphatic victory – only to get caught napping when Visma-Lease a Bike put the hammer down in windy conditions on stage 6, and to then lose more time on the mountainous eighth stage. He ultimately settled for sixth overall.
"It wasn’t everything we came to France for, but we’re proud of how our guys battled through a particularly brutal edition," UAE said on X after the race.
Did they really have to include that first bit to highlight the squad's underachievement?
This was not the first time that Almeida has been unable to turn team leadership into a win or even a podium at a high-profile stage race. He has been seen as a potential Grand Tour winner for some time now but for a UAE team that is constantly signing one Next Big Thing after another, Almeida has to be wondering how much longer his team will continue to see him that way.
As for Yates, maybe he gets a pass because his teammate won the race, but he was not particularly visible at Tirreno, where he finished 16th. He did not appear to be UAE's most valuable domestique either, at least not when the cameras were rolling. That honor belongs to Isaac del Toro, who set a torrid pace up the Frontignano climb on stage 6, teeing up Ayuso for his move.
Ayuso was duly grateful to his teammate, too, heaping praise upon him immediately after stage 6 and then again after the race was over.
"I’ve had a great help from my team, particularly Isaac Del Toro who will be with me at the Giro as well and I hope to race along with him again after to pay him back," he said. "This year the pressure falls on me and I like that."
Indeed, Ayuso, Del Toro, and Yates are all expected to head to the Giro d'Italia in one month, and at the moment, it would seem natural for Ayuso to get the nod as option 1A for this team with Yates as the second card to play. But there is still time for things to change. We will get to see both Ayuso and Yates riding side by side once again later this month at the Volta a Catalunya, where Yates has taken the overall victory in the past. Perhaps it will be the 32-year-old Brit who steps up for UAE to succeed 2024 champ Tadej Pogačar there – although given what he has achieved in the past month, it's hard to see the Barcelona-born Ayuso taking a back seat in his home race.
In any case, even at just 22, Ayuso seems to know that he shouldn't be getting cocky just yet. He was saying the kinds of things that a media-savvy veteran should be saying on Sunday when he was asked if the Tirreno result gives him confidence for the Giro.
"I guess so, but the Giro is three weeks long, it’s a different story, a different kind of race," he pointed out. "This race has been really hard but the Giro is another step up of course. We need to take it step by step and now first my focus will be on the Volta Catalunya.”
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