'No sense in pushing for the sake of it' - Ayuso drama continues at Vuelta
Torstein Træen leads the Vuelta a España, Jonas Vingegaard is the favourite and João Almeida is his biggest rival - yet much of the intrigue at the race surrounds Juan Ayuso and his role in the UAE Team Emirates-XRG. After winning at Cerler on Friday, Ayuso lost more almost 22 minutes at Valdezcaray, to the apparent frustration of an isolated Almeida.
When João Almeida highlighted the lack of support from his UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad on the climb to Valdezcaray on stage 9 of the Vuelta a España, much of the scrutiny fell on Juan Ayuso, who had begun the race as co-leader of the team.
Ayuso’s general classification aspirations – which he claimed had never existed to begin with – evaporated at Pal on stage 6, but he bounced back with a fine victory from the break at Cerler the following day.
The expectation was that Ayuso would go on to become a deluxe domestique for Almeida in the mountains over the remainder of the Vuelta, but the Spaniard made no impression at Valdezcaray. He sat up when the peloton splintered at the base of the climb, coming in almost 22 minutes down on winner Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike).
“I was quite tired, and I couldn't help the team much,” Ayuso told Marca afterwards. “I’m not in the fight for the GC, so there was no sense in pushing just for the sake of it. I wouldn’t have been up there. Pushing for five minutes more didn’t make any sense.”
Almeida was briefly paced by teammate Jay Vine, but he spent the bulk of the ascent riding in pursuit of Vingegaard with Tom Pidcock (Q36.5) on his wheel, coming in 24 seconds down on the Dane. The Portuguese rider is now third overall, 1:15 behind red jersey Torstein Traeen (Bahrain Victorious) and 38 seconds down on Vingegaard.
At the finish, Almeida was asked about his visible exasperation with Pidcock on the climb, but he preferred to shift the conversation to his frustration with his own team. “I missed maybe a bit my teammates today,” he told Eurosport. “Nobody was with me in the end, but yeah, it is what it is.”
UAE Team Emirates-XRG, like Visma | Lease a Bike, opted against holding a press conference on Monday’s rest day, but Almeida spoke with Marca prior to heading out on a recovery ride. Inevitably, he was asked to expand on his comments to Eurosport the previous evening. Just as inevitably, his response was a gnomic one.
“My teammates helped me a lot all day, and I had Jay to help me close the gap,” Almeida said. “Maybe we weren’t at 100%, maybe it wouldn’t have changed anything, we’ll never know... That's cycling.”
Almeida played a straight bat when asked if there had been an error in the team’s strategy. “I don’t want to say that,” he said. “It’s all in the past. Now it’s time to focus on the next stages ahead.”
Lidl-Trek transfer
The telenovela will doubtless continue, not least given the persistent reports linking Ayuso with a move to Lidl-Trek in 2026. The putative transfer was first reported by Ciro Scognamiglio of La Gazzetta dello Sport ahead of the Vuelta, and AS has since reported that “a change of scenery is imminent for the future of Ayuso.”
Lidl-Trek and UAE Team Emirates-XRG remain silent on the matter, but that won’t dampen the speculation from here to the Madrid, where Ayuso every pedal stroke and every post-stage utterance will be analysed to the nth degree.
Ayuso certainly hasn't dampened the attention. When he lost ground at Pal, he suggested that his GC challenge had been an invention of the Spanish press, a view which jarred with his team's very public designation of him as co-leader at the start of the race.
When he won at Cerler the next day, he pointed at his ears as he crossed the line and then posted the picture on social media that evening with the caption: “Everything negative - pressure, challenges - is all an opportunity for me to rise.”
In the meantime, of course, a bike race has broken out. Although Vingegaard is the favourite to carry the red jersey to Madrid, Almeida remains bullish about his prospects of overhauling him. The Vuelta resumes on Tuesday with a summit finish at Larra Belagua, and there are ample tests still to come over the remaining two weeks.
“He’s done the Tour, and that always makes you a little fatigued,” Almeida said of Vingegaard. “So there’s hope that the last week could be longer for him. But he’s an exemplary rider and he’s doing very well. We have to acknowledge that. He’s ahead right now, and we have to close that gap.”
Ayuso's role in that endeavour will be fascinating to watch.
